Do you remember when, in the most rude times of the pandemia Covid-19, you panicked when you see how someone is coughing next to you? In fact, we are not always panicked, but the truth is that our brain always puts us in a warning when we see how someone seems to be approaching us. In fact, the warning has such a value that it even affects The immune systemfrom which the first protective battalion begins to release Avoid conflictsThe field is a study of the study that has just been published in Nature Neuroscience From the hand of the team of scientists from Losana University, In Switzerland.
These scientists conducted their research using Virtual realityThus, their volunteers can be subjected to avatars of people with various aspects or expressions. Some were neutral, others seemed frightened, and the third was a bad face and symptoms of the disease. For example, they can cough or with pure leather rash. The brain quickly caught the last one and launched Several warning mechanisms. Researchers already had that this could happen at the brain level. Nevertheless, they did not expect that the immune system would also begin work.
When analyzing blood samples among volunteers, they saw that those who were exposed to sick persons developed the first protective response to avoid infections. It was so intensively that even This can be compared with the one that occurs after vaccinationThe field is very curious, no doubt, but there can also be a lot of utilities in medical practice.
Your brain pushes the immune system to avoid infections
In this study, they participated 248 people who were exposed to 3 types of persons mentioned above in virtual reality. When the sick faces approached them, there were several types of answer. On the one hand, the areas of the brain associated with the monitoring of personal space and the detection of threats were activated. And, on the other hand, the immune system launched the release of congenital lymphoid cells.
In the case of the brain, activity in an area known as A network of significance. This is a network consisting of several areas of the brain, such as dorsal front liner and islandWhose role is to attribute the value to everything that happens in our environment, and recognize and translate the internal feelings that it produces. In fact, This helps us analyze the environment.The field of some areas of the brain associated with a sense of vigilance were also activated. This, oddly enough, could happen to the avatars of virtual reality that were scared. To see how worried around us should put us on vigilance. And he does, but Not many sick persons.
What about the immune system?
In this study, blood samples were taken to analyze the levels of two types of cells: Congenital lymphoid cells and natural killers. They did not find changes in the second when comparing blood before and after an experiment of virtual reality, but the former changed a lot.
These are cells that are released as The first protective battalionWhen the pathogen enters our body, before the exact answer can be made with specific antibodies for it, many wide range lines that are responsible for fulfilling the first protective response. Those, among other things, are congenital lymphoid cells. This was very shocking for researchers, since they did not expect anything as simple as to see how a sick person could cause this answer. However, this makes sense, because This is a quick way to avoid infections.
In fact, both brain activity and protective levels of cells have increased, the more proximity with sick faces, and especially if these virtual people have affected them.
As in the case of vaccines
The authors of the study compared both brain activity and the immune response of these volunteers using a group of people who received Influenza vaccine. Interestingly, the answer was very similar to both levels. This first line of immune defense was obtained, but there were also changes at the brain level. When volunteers completed the cognitive task during the inflammatory state obtained as a result of vaccination, the activated areas of the brain were partially.
What does it use to know all this?
These results can be very useful, for example, to increase vaccines efficiency. People can be vaccinated, and then go through a short virtual reality with sick faces To give Contribute to growth To your immune system And avoid infections. Additional studies are needed to plant it in well -developed treatment. But, no doubt, this is the conclusion of the most interesting, which indicates how far our brain can go in order to protect us.
Source: Hiper Textual
