"In the study, healthy volunteers took part in brain training sessions in which they tried different mental strategies to boost activity in particular parts of the brain. They knew how well they were doing thanks to real-time feedback in the form of scores that rose in line with brain activity. After four training sessions, the volunteers were given a hepatitis B vaccine."
"It's the first demonstration in humans, in what seems to be a causal manner, that if you learn how to recruit your reward system in the brain, the effectiveness of immunisation increases, said Talma Hendler, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Previous work has shown that positive expectations can benefit patients with some medical problems, as seen in the placebo effect."
Healthy volunteers underwent brain-training sessions with real-time feedback to learn mental strategies that increased activity in specific brain regions. Participants used scores showing brain activity to practice boosting reward-system regions. After four sessions participants received a hepatitis B vaccine and provided blood samples two and four weeks later for antibody analysis. Individuals who increased activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) showed the strongest antibody responses. The most successful participants used positive expectations or imagining good outcomes to activate the VTA. Activating the brain's reward system may enhance vaccine effectiveness and could inform mental interventions to strengthen immune responses, pending larger trials.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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