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According to a new study, to be close to sick people can activate your immune system – even if sick people are not real.
Your body is not waiting for the disease to hit to prepare for the battle. Being near sick people can activate your immune system – even if they are not real, as a new study has discovered.
The Swiss research group used virtual reality (VR) in a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience to control the biological reactions of people to possible threats to health. They say that the VR can be a promising addition for other tools for improving the immune system, such as vaccines.
During the experiment, the researchers connected 248 healthy young people with a mechanism that measured the brain activity, and then wore VR headphones, who delivered them to the virtual world full of sick people. Some of the avatars had visible infections, such as a rash or cough, while others were either frightened or neutral.
When the sick avatars came very close to the participants, their brain was lit in such a way that it did not happen when neutral or frightened faces approached. In particular, the Avatar activated the SO network of SO -raised significance or part of the brain, which mainly discover “obvious incentives, including threats,” as it was discovered.
Blood samples from people who have exposed to patients with avatars also showed the peak of the activity of congenital lymphocytes, which is a key part of the immune response. These cells are activated by pathogenic threats, helping the body quickly organize the answer.
The body reacts similarly to a real infection, such as the flu vaccine.
“We thought that, if anything, (the reaction will be) something is very soft,” said Euronews Health, Dr. Camilla Giandus, one of the authors of the study and immunologist at the University of Geneva.
“To see cell changes in a few hours, we really did not expect this.”
According to researchers, the results show that our brain can detect potential threats from infections before even contact the patient, activating our immune system in defense.
“When an infectious threat falls into our bodies, the immune system reacts, but often it’s too late,” said Dzhandus. “We see this detection for something virtual as a system of anxiety, which … maybe, in accordance with precaution, to activate our immune system.”
Researchers do not know exactly how the brain and the immune system work together to combat pathogenic microorganisms or if an immune response that promotes virtual reality will be as strong and prolonged as the one caused by the vaccine.
But their conclusions, it seems, correspond to previous studies, assuming that the body works as “Tobacco detector“What reacts to possible health threats that turn out to be false anxieties. Anxiety, inflammation, pain, vomiting, cough and diarrhea can be protective reactions.
The study is one of the first, so it will need researchers in larger groups to confirm the results.
The Jandus team explores whether the immune system of people is reacted in terms of the VR script, characterized by the threat of bacteria or viruses.
They also want to study whether the virtual environment can help improve people’s immune response to vaccines and can these environments serve as a kind of exposition treatment for people with allergies.
Thus, when people are really infected with an allergen or virus, “you have already predicted and prepared your body to react, hoping to achieve more success in reaction,” said Dzhandus.