Botox dampens down emotions
Mon, Jun 06 2010
Apart from smoothing the wrinkles and limiting the facial expressions, a new study suggests that Botox injections can dampen one's ability to feel emotions.

Botox injections smooth wrinkles by paralyzing the underlying muscles that cause the wrinkles; fillers such as Restylane, however, are believed to restore volume to facial folds and wrinkles without affecting facial muscles.

According to the study published in Emotions, individuals receiving Botox injections have less emotional response to certain events, reinforcing the psychological theory that facial expressions can affect the mood. Facial expressions themselves may influence emotional experiences through a feedback loop, the study found.

"With Botox, a person can respond otherwise normally to an emotional event, e.g., a sad movie scene, but will have less movement in the facial muscles that have been injected, and therefore less feedback to the brain about such facial expressivity. It thus allows for a test of whether facial expressions and the sensory feedback from them to the brain can influence our emotions," said lead researcher Joshua Ian Davis.

"For at least some emotions, if you take away some part of the facial expression, you take away some of the emotional experience," Davis added. 
Copyright Press TV