Scientists have found out why some do not lend themselves to hypnosis
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Not all people are equally susceptible to hypnosis. The explanation for this is the coordinated work of nerve centers, which are responsible for making decisions, and also assess its importance.
It has long been known that people react differently to immersion in hypnosis. Some people can easily enter into a hypnotic trance, while others are simply impossible. But what is hidden behind these differences, the scientists decided to find out just now. Scientists from Stanford University undertook to study this issue. Their achievements are published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
In fact, this is the first study that compared the effect of hypnosis and the activity of certain parts of the brain.
Statistics say that about a quarter of patients who seek help from psychoneurologists and psychologists are immune to hypnosis. It is this circumstance that prompted scientists to think that the reason for such staunchness lies not in the individual characteristics of people, but in the features of the functioning of the brain departments, whose activity was manifested in some, not allowing one to lead a person into a hypnotic trance, and in no way manifested themselves in others people who calmly succumbed to hypnotic effects.
To participate in the experiment, scientists attracted 12 people with resistance to hypnosis and 12 - hypnotic-influenced people. The specialists monitored the activity of three neuronal circuits with the help of MRI. One of them was responsible for self-awareness and introspection, the second for decision-making, and the third conducted an assessment of the task and analyzed its advantage over the others.
It turned out that those who can easily enter into a hypnotic trance, along with the first chain, activate all the others, but a group of people resistant to hypnosis showed other results. They have not been able to activate all three chains at the same time.
If a person did not take hypnosis, then the functional connection between the areas of the cerebral cortex was weak.
This means that during a hypnosis session, a person injected into a trance can concentrate and focus on the exciting problem of it with the help of functional communication between the areas of the cerebral cortex that make decisions and assess its importance. Therefore, the susceptibility or sustained response to hypnosis does not depend on the psychological characteristics of a person, but proceeds from the peculiarities of the organization of its brain centers.
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