Scientists from northwestern University in the US found out how breathing affects memory and fear.
They talked about it in the journal of Neuroscience.
According to them, the rhythms of breathing create in the brain electrical activity. This effect varies depending on the mouth or nose is breathing and the speed with which are produced the in-breaths and exhalations.
As a result, the EEG of the seven subjects, epilepsy patients, and 70 healthy showed that during respiration involves three areas of the brain: the olfactory cortex, responsible for processing smells, the hippocampus, which controls memory, and the amygdala, associated with emotional processes.
It is noted that participants are faster to recognize fearful faces when breathed through the nose also breaths the nose a positive impact on the ability to remember the objects.
As shown by previous studies, the frequency of human breathing in a calm state is 12-18 breaths per minute, and the excitement increases to 20.
“When you panic, your breathing rate increases. As a result, you breathe more often than when calm. Thus, the innate reaction of the body to fear, which increases the respiratory rate, has a positive impact on brain function and result in reduction of time of response to threat stimuli,” the researchers note.
