Alternative treatments to behavioral and physical disorders can be a great tool used by the medical experts as long as it shown significant therapeutic effects, that’s why more information and research is needed in order to understand both the biological and neural basis of hypnosis and the beneficial effects it may have, also this data would provide evidence to develop tools than can be applied with smart devices in our houses providing an inexpensive and accessible tool to improve our mental and physical health.

1. Neural basis of hypnosis

2. Definition
 Hypnosis can be defined as a state of mental concentration that can lead to a
progressive state of relaxation called “nervous sleep”
James Braid
Scottish surgeon and pioneer in the hypnosis field.

3. Different uses of hypnosis
 Hypnotherapy
Taken from: https://bit.ly/2DoADoX

4. Different uses of hypnosis
 Self-hypnosis- Usually reached by breathing exercises
Taken from: https://bit.ly/33u6dgf

5. Different uses of hypnosis
 Stage hypnosis- Used in entertainment, lacks of clinical utility.
Taken from: https://bit.ly/3kcyu0G

6. Different uses of hypnosis
 The main use of hypnosis has been related with the treatment of pain,
anxiety and stress disroders.
 In clinical studies the intensity of pain can be measured by the visual
analogue scale.
Taken from: https://bit.ly/39LwaZL

7. Studies have demonstrated that back
pain can be reduced by hypnosis therapy
 A group of patients with back
pain (red line) exposed to
hypnotherapy reported a
reduction in pain in the VAS.

8. Disadvantages of Hypnotherapy
 Hypnotherapy still faces skepticism from the scientific community since not al
patients show beneficial effects.
 Many patients fet dissapointed since they expect a miracle cure and not
alyaws works the same for everybody.
 Spiegel et al. (2012) has categorized individuals as low and high hypnotizable.

9. High hypnotizable people show an increased co-activation of dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex and anterior cingular cortex
Hoeft et al. 2012.
The coactivation of
DLPFC and dACC could
provide people the
ability to better
control pain, anxiety
or stress, symptoms
that are clinically
relevant when treating
“mental” and
behavioral
disorders as anxiety,
depression, post-
traumatic stress
disorder

10. No only activation…but reduction also
 Spiegel’s group also found reduced connections between the DLPFC and the
posterior cingulate cortex which might represent a disconnect between
someone’s actions and their awareness of their actions, states presented
during hypnosis.
Taken from: https://bit.ly/313H2hy

11. Placebo and hypnosis..how are they related?
 In order to observe beneficial effects of hypnotherapy it is important to know
that the beliefs and expectations of a patient can dramatically impact human
perception, in the same way as a placebo response, which has been
demonstrated that an ineffective drug or therapeutic treatment is beneficial
just because we believe it will work.
Placebo effect on a migraine study. Patients with
migraine receive a placebo pill or a Maxalt pill but
the labeling of each treatment was changed, being
P= Placebo, U= Unespecified and M= Maxalt or
placebo, NT corresponds to “no treatment”
interestingly the labelling of the treatments induce
a reduction in pain perception for the placebo
group, while pain perception in the Maxalt grouo
receiving Maxalt labelled as “placebo” was reduced
in contrast to the U and M labeling.

12. How can we apply self-hypnosis in our daily
lives?
 With the increased use of Smart devices we can apply self-hypnosis at home.

13. Dr. Tan et al. (2014) shown that chronic low back pain and sleep disorders related to
this condition can be treated by self-hypnosis induced with audio recordings and
phone calls from an specialist, participants in this study shown a reduction in pain
intensity, pain interference and sleep quality, importantly these beneficial effects
were still present even after 6 months after the treatment in at least 30% of the
participants.

14. In summary
 Alternative treatments to behavioral and physical disorders can be a great
tool used by the medical experts
 More information and research is needed in order to understand both the
biological and neural basis of hypnosis and the beneficial effects it may have
 This data would provide evidence to develop tools than can be applied with
smart devices in our houses providing an inexpensive and accessible tool to
improve our mental and physical health.