The human brain is able to influence the intensity of the allergic reaction
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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It turns out that the human brain is able to influence the intensity of the allergic reaction. The scientists decided to figure out whether this is really so.
The human immune system is subject to consciousness, at least in part. To such an interesting conclusion came scientists from the University of South Australia. Do not you think that it looks like something from an arsenal of psychics, magicians and other Jedi? After all, an ordinary person, if cut, does not give an order to his immune cells to rush into the breach and eliminate the invading infection. Our immunity, fortunately, is managed without the leading role of the higher nervous system.
But here is a simple experiment put scientists. Several volunteers were injected with histamine: our immune system produces it in large quantities in allergic reactions. Histamine was injected into the arm, but the experiment was organized so that it seemed as though the drug was being injected into a rubber doll. That is, a person believed that everything is normal with his hand, and histamine is stuck in a dummy. In the other hand, the injection was done without any tricks. And in parallel put the experiment, introducing histamine into both hands - and also "in fact".
So, it turned out that if there was an "illusion of introduction", if a person thought that histamine was not administered to him, then the allergic reaction was much stronger. It looked as if the brain, seeing how the injection was done, and realizing that there was no danger in that, suppressed the immune reaction. And in the case of an imaginary rubber arm, the brain would think that there was nothing to worry about, and stopped monitoring immunity.
The results of the study were presented by Australian scientists in the journal Current Biology.
It can not be said that this phenomenon is the only one of its kind. Previously, the same group showed: if the brain ceases to consider "its own", for example, the hand because of a similar illusion, then in such a "rejected" hand the blood flow decreases and the temperature drops slightly. Perhaps the new results will help establish a deep relationship between various autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and psychoneurological disorders. But for certain it will be possible to judge this only after many and many verification experiments: the results obtained are painfully unbelievable.