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Wednesday, September 03, 2003Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are reporting today that the activation of brain regions associated with negative emotions appears to weaken people's immune response to a flu vaccine. ...In the study, 52 women, ages 57 to 60, were asked to think and write about extremely positive and extremely negative events in their lives. The women were participants in a continuing long-term study of high school graduates from the class of 1957. In the positive emotion condition, the women were instructed to spend one minute recalling an experience of "intense happiness or joy, specifically the best time or experience in their life," and then to spend five minutes writing about it. In the negative emotion condition, the subjects did the same for an event that inspired "intense sadness, fear or anger, the worst time or experience in their life." Electrical activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex — an area known to be centrally involved in emotion — was recorded by electroencephalogram while the women were thinking about their experiences and after the writing ended. Then the participants were given a flu vaccine. Six months later, the researchers found, the subjects who showed the most activity in the brain's right prefrontal cortex also had the lowest antibodies. Brain activation during the positive-emotions condition was not linked to differences in antibody levels. Interesting that positive thoughts didn't seem to make much difference. So much for the power of postive thinking. The power appears to be in the negative. But isn't that true in general? One person's really bad mood can make all those around them miserable, but one person's good mood rarely puts everyone else in an equally happy state. posted by Sydney on 9/03/2003 07:35:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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