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If you can't nod off then your brain could be to blame! Scientists discover why some people just can't be hypnotised
It is certainly one of the more mysterious medical treatments. But one question has always remained: why can some people be hypnotised and others can’t?
The answer, it seems, may well lie with our decision-making ability.
Scientists at Stanford University in the U.S. have discovered that people susceptible to hypnosis find it easier to make decisions and have better attention spans.
On the other hand, those who are precise in their habits and make judgements quickly are less likely to succumb.
The study was published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Hypnosis is described as a trance-like state during which a person has a heightened focus and concentration.
It has been used to help manage pain, control anxiety and combat phobias.
It’s also increasingly being used to reduce conditions linked to stress, such as irritable bowel syndrome.
But Dr David Spiegel, who led the research, says up to a quarter of people he sees cannot be hypnotised.
To try and establish why, he scanned 12 people who were susceptible to hypnosis and 12 who were not.
Dr Spiegel and his colleagues found no differences between the typical structures of the two groups' brains.
But when they looked at the subjects' brains at rest, they noticed the brains of the easily hypnotised people behaved differently: they were most active in areas that decide what to focus on.
Dr Spiegal told the Los Angeles Times: ‘The highly hypnotisable are people who can readily immerse themselves in thinking about things without having their attention interrupted by pesky reminders of reality or of competing cognitive demands.
'They can harness their minds to imagine something about themselves - and make it so.’
In everyday life, says Dr. Spiegel, these high hypnotisable people are notably different than their less hynotisable peers.
‘They get side-tracked by sunsets and lost in movies; they tend to show up three hours late for things because they lost track of time.'
By contrast, those who are resistant to hypnosis tend to be more judgmental, fastidious in their habits and less trusting of people.
The researchers looked at the activity of three different networks in the brain: the default-mode network, used when the brain is idle; the executive-control network, which is involved in making decisions; and the salience network, which is involved in prioritising.
Both groups had an active default-mode network, but people who could be easily hypnotised had more activity between the decision-making and prioritising networks.
They also had more activation between an important control region of the brain and the area involved in focusing attention.
In people who struggled to be hypnotised there was little connectivity between these two regions.
Dr Spiegal said the results came close to finding a ‘brain signature’ which reveals who can and cannot be hypnotised.
The hope is to use this to shed light on how hypnosis could be more widely used to combat pain, ease stress and overcome phobias.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2213293/Hypnosis-Why-quick-decision-makers-people-higher-attention-span-better.html?openGraphAuthor=%2Fhome%2Fsearch.html%3Fs%3D%26authornamef%3DAnna%2BHodgekiss
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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