Imagine a barking dog, a shaggy spider or something else scary - the brain and body will react the same way as if you actually encountered them. However, fear will pass if you draw a similar frightening picture in your imagination several times, while being safe.
According to scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Icahn School of Medicine, imagination can be a powerful tool in helping people overcome their fears and anxiety disorders.
About one in three Americans have anxiety disorders, including phobias; 8 percent have post-traumatic stress disorder. Since the 1950s, physicians have used "exposure therapy" as their first-line treatment. Patients were asked to face their real or imagined fears in a safe, controlled environment. The results were positive, but until now, scientists knew very little about how this method affects the brain.
As Marianne Kumella Reddan, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and Neurology, noted, new discoveries help bridge the long-standing gap between clinical practice and cognitive neuroscience. This is the first neuroscience study to show that if you play around with a threat, your brain's perception of it can actually change.
The study involved 68 healthy people who were "accustomed" to the fact that a certain sound was followed by a painless but unpleasant electric shock. The participants were divided into three groups. The first were given to listen to the specified sound, the second were asked to reproduce it in their head, the third were told to imagine something pleasant - for example, birdsong or the sound of rain. At the same time, an electric shock was not followed for any of the participants.
During the experiment, scientists measured the activity of the brain and the general response of the body. In the first two groups, the results were surprisingly similar: the auditory cortex, the nucleus accumbens (which is responsible for the formation of fear) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (associated with risk and aversion) were activated. When the test was repeated, the participants showed attenuation of the reaction, that is, the stimulus that previously caused concern ceased to act in this way. We can say that the brain has learned to be afraid of this sound.
It is noteworthy that in the group, which represented the singing of birds and the sound of rain, the results were different - their reaction to the sound persisted.
“According to many, to overcome fear or negative emotions, you need to present something good. In fact, exactly the opposite: you need to reproduce in your head what you are afraid of, but without negative consequences,”said Thor Wager, director of the Laboratory for Cognitive and Affective Neurobiology.
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As previous research has shown, imagining an action can activate and strengthen the brain regions involved in its actual performance. For example, if you imagine a piano playing, the neural connections in the areas associated with the fingers can be enhanced. In addition, it has been found that our memories can be updated by adding new details. The results of the current study suggest that the imagination can be more helpful in this than previously thought.
As Reddan explained, if a person has any unpleasant memories, with the help of their imagination, they can be revised and reinforced by changing their emotions about this. The researcher emphasized that even something as simple as imagining a single sound involved complex brain circuits. The brain activity in the corresponding group was much more varied than in those who actually heard this sound.
According to Wager, imagination must be manipulated - it can be used constructively to shape what the brain has learned through experience.
It can be summed up that the imagination is becoming an increasingly common tool in the work of doctors, and therefore more research is needed.