If you do a search for Vladimir Putin on Google Images, you’ll discover not a single picture displaying his teeth. In virtually every picture his face is either blank or frowning. Dopamine and serotonin are key neurotransmitters responsible for making us smile. My hypothesis would be that Putin’s brain and body are low in both these feel-good chemical messengers. I would also posit that his brain and body are high in the hormone testosterone. High levels of testosterone also correlate with an inability to smile.
Over the course of his 69 years. Putin is believed to be directly responsible for the pain, suffering and death of many human beings. You don’t authorize and orchestrate such actions without it having a profoundly adverse affect on your neurophysiology. He’s no different than Joystick Warriors – pilots located in Langley, Virginia – delivering airstikes in eight different countries: their brains and bodies are negatively affected by their actions, even from thousands of miles away. For all of its power and glory, yours becomes a joyless life.
Developmentally Delayed
If we view Putin’s development through the lens of Attachment and Adverse Childhood Experiences research, he becomes the poster boy for how trauma can compromise brain function.
Of the four ways that human beings can connect to significant people in their lives, I eould make a strong case that Putin would come out on the “Disorganized” end of the Attachment Spectrum (Secure, Ambivalent and Avoidant are the other three attachment styles, each with their own characteristics). Adults with Disorganized Attachment lack understanding of their own and others’ feelings, are unpredictable and illogical, frequently exhibit aggressive behavior and tend to have a negative view of themselves and others. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, both of Putin’s parents were out of the house working – he was essentially a latchkey kid. There was no “trustworthy other” to help shape his relational nervous system in other than dysfunctional ways.
As for Adverse Childhood Experiences, according to Jane Ellen Stevens, “when you look at Putin’s early years, the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) pile up—lack of food, inadequate housing, bullying, neglect, parental depression, etc. And he obviously inherited a bunch of ACEs from his parents, including wartime trauma personified by Nazi forces that threatened their existence and their homeland” (The Nazis murdered most of Leningrad’s 3 million citizens during WWII).
Dealing with Brain Damage
When someone with this kind of compromised personal history comes into power internationally, the stakes for the rest of us change profoundly. The wisdom response to such people is that they must be restrained in order to keep them from perpetrating the pain and suffering that they inevitably wreak upon others.
The possibility for restraining such people becomes challenging, to say the least, when that person has a nuclear arsenal at their disposal. Nevertheless, such people cannot operate in a vacuum. They must have people around them to do their bidding. It is those people – the high-ranking authorities around Putin – that I believe the most strategic interventions should be directed. Presumably, some of them have had less disorganized early beginnings, beginnings that will have resulted in robust capacities for Executive Functions being operational in their brains. When you look over THE LIST of those capacities, it becomes clear that they are compromised in Putin’s brain, especially the ability to see the big picture going forward. Despots who invade other countries with no provocation tend not to fare well over the long term. The world’s best hope is that such capacities are not compromised in at least a few of Putin’s inner circle.
The Committed Parent 
Like many people, I’ve seen a lot about Vladimir Putin, but never anything like this. I honestly didn’t know much about his childhood, so this helps my perspective. It’s unfortunate, and too often tragic, that people who become powerful leaders are often not cut out for that position.
But in regard to the not smiling and not showing the teeth, I believe that’s a cultural norm. I don’t claim to be an expert; I have a college minor, not major, in ethnic studies. I have tutored English as a second language to someone from Russia, my primary physician is from Russia, and I have friends who came from Russia. All of them are nice and polite, but rarely if ever smile and show their teeth.
I did some checking, and found some articles that seem to back this up. Iosif Sternin wrote “10 reasons why Russians don’t smile much” for *Russia Beyond*; *Today* has “Why don’t Russians smile? Nastia Liukin answers our burning cultural questions”; the *Washington Post* has “Russians don’t smile much, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like you” by Samuel Putnam and Masha A. Gartstein; and Michael Bohm wrote “Why Russians Don’t Smile” for *The Moscow Times*.