What is interesting about this is that for years the "Positive Thinker Movement" has suggested that if we smile our brains will pick up on that and we will feel happier. Now this research shows us this is true, our brains do regester our expressions. So SMILE and you will FEEL BETTER. Have a good day.

Botox Limits Ability to Feel Emotions

Botox, a popular cosmetic
injection used to fight facial wrinkles, is made of an extremely
toxic
protein called Botulinum toxin. Botox
works by temporarily paralyzing muscles that cause wrinkles.

That means no unsightly wrinkles, but also no moving those
muscles at all — which could have more significant consequences than
simply
looking frozen, the researchers found.
Scientists think that facial expressions themselves may influence
emotional experiences, so a person with a limited ability to make facial
expressions may also have a limited ability to feel emotions.

"With Botox, a person can respond otherwise normally to
an emotional event, [such as] 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," said researcher Joshua Davis, a
psychologist at Barnard College in New York. "It thus allows for a test
of
whether facial expressions and the sensory feedback from them to the
brain can
influence our emotions."

Davis and his Barnard colleague Ann Senghas led a team of
researchers who showed people emotionally charged videos both before and
after
they were injected with either Botox, or Restylane — a substance
injected into
lips or facial wrinkles that fills out sagging skin. Restylane was used
as a
control because it simply adds filler but doesn't limit the movement of
muscles.

Compared with the control group, the Botox participants
"exhibited an overall significant decrease in the strength of emotional
experience," the researchers wrote in a paper published in the June
issue
of the journal Emotion. In particular, the Botox group responded less
strongly
to mildly positive clips after they had the injections than before the
Botox.

The findings tie into an idea suggested more than a century
ago that feedback from facial expressions to the brain can influence the
experience
of
emotions, the researchers said. The simple act of smiling, for
example,
can help make you feel happy, while frowning can bring down your mood.

"In a bigger picture sense, the work fits with common
beliefs, such as 'fake it till you make it,'" Davis said.

• Top
  10 Crimes Against Nature


• 5
  Myths
  About Women's Bodies


• Heidi
  Montag's Plastic Surgery: Obsession or
  Addiction?