Horror movies – the unsettling films that are intended to invoke the watchers’ hidden worst fears, are fascinating to watch and enjoy. Aren’t they??? But do you know horror movies also can help understanding the psychological behavior of the human being? A group of scientists, at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in the United States have taken horror movies into consideration for understanding the human behavior and mental illness in batter manners.
According to Scientists, people often memorize traumatic events more than the everyday occurrences, and hence they have used the sense of horror movies to get a comprehensive idea on how our brain accepts the feelings of terror and nervousness. As mentioned by the researchers in their new study paper, people often motivates to remember terrible events more as the experiences are helpful for their daily survival. And this perspective led scientists to consider the senses of horror films for latching into brain’s functionality during the state of fear and anxiety.
The new research if produces the perfect aftermath, can pave new revolutionary paths for the treatment of mental health disorders and understand human’s psychological behavior. Up to date, the experiment on underlying fear in the brain circuit has only been conducted in rodents, and the new one is the first-of-its-kind to be mapped in human beings.
During the research, analysts at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in the US used the electrodes for recording the sensual commotions in the brain. Scientists used the electrodes interleaved into the amygdala and hippocampus of nine people for mapping the intensity of sensation and anxiety and stimulating the gratitude of fear while watching horror movies.
As per the demonstrations were given by the researchers, two regions – amygdala and hippocampus, nuzzled deep in the core of the brain – play the most pivotal roles in recognizing and understanding the emotional stimulations and indoctrination them into memories. Throughout the research, the analyst found these two crucial parts of the brain to directly exchanging signals, while watching scenes from horror movies.
According to Jie Zheng, a graduate student from the University of California, Irvine and the lead author of the study, “Neurons in the amygdala fired up 120 milliseconds before than the fire up of the hippocampus. And with this, now we remarkably have become able to map and measure the brain dynamics with extreme precision. The traffic between these most important parts of the brain is being controlled by the emotions, provoked by the scenes of horror movies, which can help us getting a better understanding of psychological disorders and behavior of human being.”
Taking the statement further, he added, “Deep brain electrodes lock up the fire-up of neurons millisecond by millisecond, resulting in the real-time showcase of how the brain reacts to the fearful spurs.”