Social phobia, Brain, and Self-perception

Scientists have found that people who suffer from social phobia respond differently to negative comments about themselves, than others. What features of this phobia is the fear and avoid social situations, and fear of negative votes by others, the authors say. This is without doubt the most common anxiety disorders in the general population.

If you have a social phobia also have a higher risk for depression and other forms of self-destructive behavior. We need others to feel good. We need a social network to function properly as a human being.

Research has shown that people with phobias tend to have increased emotional responsiveness to social interaction. The study is published in the Archives of General Psychiatry (Oct 2008) was performed using brain imaging technology, also known as MRI.

How this Study Was Made

This study was conducted with fMRI brain scan.

First, they scan the brains of 17 individuals of social phobia but no drugs. And then they compared the same number of control subjects the same age, sex and IQ, but who do not have a social phobia.

Brain scans taken when the test subjects to read the various statements - positive, negative or neutral. "You're beautiful", may be examples of positive statements. "You look like hell" - negative. "You are human" - neutral. The statement could refer either to himself or others, such as "She's beautiful".