The foregoing examination of the neural substrates of information processing serves as a platform from which one examines the expression of different types of disruption of consciousness. However, given that a number of disorders of consciousness are developmental in origin—that is, they occur during human neural maturation and growth—certain precepts of human development must first be illustrated in order to fully realize the diverse spectrum of ways in which consciousness can fall into disrepair. The right brain is centrally involved not only in processing social–emotional information, promoting attachment functions, and regulating bodily and affective states, but also in the organization of vital functions supporting survival and enabling the organism to cope dynamically with stress. The maturation of these adaptive right-brain regulatory capacities is experience dependent, embedded in the attachment connection between the infant and its primary caregivers. Thus attachment theory is an affect-regulatory theory.