Cross arms for less pain
9 Jun 2011 by Evoluted New Media
By crossing your arms, you can reduce the intensity of pain felt when one hand receives a painful stimulus say researchers from University College London.
By crossing your arms, you can reduce the intensity of pain felt when one hand receives a painful stimulus say researchers from University College London.
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Crossing your arms over the midline eases pain |
Their finding opens up the possibility of developing clinical therapies to exploit the way the brain represents the body.
Researchers took eight participants and used a laser to generate a four second pin prick of ‘pure pain’ – pain without touch – on their hands. The experiment was repeated with arms crossed over the midline – an imaginary line running down the centre of the body.
Participants rated their perception of the intensity of pain, and their electrical brain responses were also measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The results from both participants’ reports and the EEG showed that the perception of pain was weaker when the arms were crossed.
Scientists believe the weakening of pain is because the brain is receiving conflicting information from the brain’s map of the body and its external space.
“The areas of the brain that contain the map of the right body and the map of the right external space are usually activated together, leading to highly effective processing of sensory stimuli,” said Dr Giandomenico Iannetti – leader of the study, from the department of physiology, pharmacology and neuroscience.
“When you cross your arms these maps are not activated together anymore, leading to less effective brain processing of sensory stimuli, including pain, being perceived as weaker.”
Researchers hope the discovery could lead to new innovative clinical therapies to reduce pain that exploit the brain’s way of representing the body.
