The brains of people who are ‘horrific’ works differently
Some are very handsome, others not so and there’s plenty. But they all have one thing in common: when they look in the mirror, the image that it brings back is of someone ugly and deformed. They are people with body dimorphic disorder, a psychiatric condition that affects an estimated 1% to 2% of the population. A study just to verify that the brains of these individuals react differently to the contemplation of his own face.
Examples of images used in the study. (Photo: Archives of General Psychiatry) Know exactly what happens in the minds of those who suffer the condition is vital to help them move forward and leave behind the anxiety generated by their appearance. Many are unable to lead a normal, half requiring hospitalization at some point in their lives and about 25% attempt suicide.
Research published in the latest issue of Archives of General Psychiatry compared the brain areas were activated in 17 affected and 16 other healthy while viewing a photograph of themselves and another for a famous actor.
To tune a bit more on analysis of visual processing, scientists, University of California (United States) – Digital images were shown in three different resolutions: standard, in a format that highlights the details (spots, profile of the nose and eyes, hair) or a configuration in which only perceived the spatial relationship between different parts of the face and shape of it.
The medical imaging technique used was the fMRI, which allows observing in real time what brain areas are activated by performing a particular activity.
When individuals with body dimorphic disorder looked at his face, there was a hyper activation of brain structures related to the specific visual processing. This does not happen if they looked the picture of famous actor and healthy people do not happen or your own image or that of the celebrities.
However, when the portrait was taught not altered and only one in which the facial contour can be seen, there is a hypo activation of brain regions involved in this process.
On the other hand, deviations from the unaffected were more marked the greater the severity of the symptoms of those who believed deformed.
These abnormal patterns of activation show that people with the disease have difficulties in extracting information from a face. “These individuals perceive the details and have fundamentally damaged the ability to contextualize them within a whole,” the authors note.
The findings of this study show some similarities with the observed brain activity in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is hypothesized that both disorders respond to similar neurological mechanisms.
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