Not getting sleepy? Study explains why hypnosis doesn't work for
all Not everyone is able to be hypnotized, and new research from
the Stanford University School of Medicine shows how the brains
of such people differ from those who can easily be. The study,
published in the October issue of Archives of General
Psychiatry, uses data from functional and structural magnetic
resonance imaging to identify how the areas of the brain
associated with executive control and attention tend to have
less activity in people who cannot be put into a hypnotic
trance. "There's never been a brain signature of being
hypnotized, and we're on the verge of identifying one," said
David Spiegel, MD, the paper's senior author and a professor of
psychiatry and behavioral sciences. Such an advance would enable
scientists to understand better the mechanisms underlying
hypnosis and how it can be used more widely and effectively in
clinical settings, added Spiegel, who also directs the Stanford
Center for Integrative Medicine. Spiegel esti