Rhythm of Breathing Affects Memory and Fear

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Article: https://neurosciencenews.com/memory-fear-breathing-5699/
Rhythm of Breathing Affects Memory and Fear

Summary: In recent findings, there have been several elements linking a strong association between the rate at which an individual breathes and their memory and emotions. The first study they reference involves the use of patients with epilepsy. As scientists were observing their brain activity levels, they noticed that these levels had visibly changed when the patient inhaled and exhaled. Upon inhalation, area of the brain such as the Amygdala and Hippocampus were stimulated; these areas are attributed to principles such as emotions and memory. On the other hand, there were no distinct differences in brain activity levels upon exhalation. With these findings, researchers were able to detect connections between inhalation and its effect on stimulating electrical activity in the brain that is involved in areas of emotion and memory. Furthermore, another study in this article explored the person’s rate of breathing and its effect on decision making on facial expressions. The results showed that participants recognized fearful faces more often when they were inhaling rather than exhaling. These findings also found that they were only able to recognize fearful expression faster if they were breathing through their nose, and that inhaling through the mouth had no effect on the brain activity. While this is the case, this supports findings connecting emotional recognition to specific breathing patterns. Lastly, to assess the memory aspect, researchers showed participants pictures and were later told to recall them. They found that those who had seen the pictures during inhalation had recalled them better than other groups. These support the research that inhalation plays a role on the effect of activity levels in memory and emotion in the brain.

Reflection: This article relates to multiple facets of psychology, mainly cognitive and physiological. Memory is the forefront of cognitive psychology, and this investigates the roles that physiological effects play on memory. In my cognitive psychology course, I learned that an individual is able to recall more information in a situation where their sympathetic system is active. This can be attributed to the fact that when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, your breathing rate tends to increase. With this increase then comes better likelihood to remember events. Furthermore, in instances of fear, when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, the same thing occurs. This supports how memory can be related to emotions such as fear due to the physiological effects that occur in the instance of fear.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 16, 2018 at 7:46 AM

    Taylor Marcus

    This is a very informative and interesting research finding. It would be interesting to find out if those with inhaling issues or say maybe high use smokers have a worse memory than someone who doesn't smoke. My post was about how electric stimulation can effect next day memory, which was proven to be correct. This research confirms what my research was purposing. One was electric stimulation and one was stimulation by inhaling. Studies like this can show us that their may be other stimuli that can help our memories. The bigger the variety the more options those with memory deficiency have to rehabilitate themselves.

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