When something hurts, itches, or becomes inflamed, the natural reaction is to distract oneself. We switch to a phone, a conversation, or a movie, just to feel the unpleasant signal less. However, a new study by Israeli scientists shows an unexpected effect: paying attention to sensations may not intensify inflammation, but rather help the body regulate it.
The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, was conducted by scientists at Bar-Ilan University under the leadership of Nofar Mizrahi in Liron Rozenkrantz's laboratory. 57 healthy volunteers participated in three experiments. The scientists induced minor, temporary skin inflammation using histamine, after which participants were asked to either carefully observe the sensations in that area—itching, burning, warmth—or to distract themselves with videos and various tasks.
The result proved paradoxical. When people concentrated on the inflamed area, they felt it more intensely, but the inflammation itself was smaller. In one of the experiments, the average size of the wheal was about 3,5 mm with focused attention versus 5 mm when distracted. In approximately 90% of participants, the inflammatory response was stronger precisely when they were distracted. The differences emerged within just a few minutes. This is an important observation: feeling inflammation more strongly and having stronger inflammation are not the same thing.
A possible explanation is linked to interoception—the brain's ability to perceive the internal state of the body. Heartbeat, breathing, temperature, tension, pain, and itching constantly transmit information to the brain about what is happening inside the body. But the brain does not simply receive these messages. It uses them to manage physiological processes.
In this sense, the connection between the brain and the body resembles not a one-way transmission of information, but a continuous dialogue:
body - brain - assessment of state - regulatory signal - body.
By directing attention to a specific area, we may be increasing the significance of the signal coming from it. The brain receives more accurate information about what is happening and can adjust the body's response accordingly.
The researchers found signs of two mechanisms at once. The first is related to sensory signals coming from the inflamed tissue. The second likely operates top-down—from the brain to the body. Even when skin sensitivity was reduced using local anesthesia, the influence of attention did not disappear entirely.
Simultaneously, heart rate variability changed, which points to the possible involvement of the autonomic, including the parasympathetic, nervous system. This does not directly prove that consciousness "switches off" inflammation, but it clearly demonstrates how closely intertwined attention, the nervous system, and immune regulation are.
For the science of consciousness, this raises a particularly interesting question. We are accustomed to separating conscious processes from automatic physiology: attention and perception belong to consciousness, while immunity works on its own. But studies like this make that boundary increasingly less obvious.
From the perspective of predictive processing, the brain is constantly building a model of the body's state, comparing it with incoming signals, and adjusting the functioning of internal systems. Attention may increase the precision of a specific bodily signal, turning a subjective sensation into part of a physiological feedback loop.
Of course, the study is still very limited. It involved only 57 healthy people, and it examined short-term, artificially induced skin inflammation. The results cannot be automatically extrapolated to chronic pain, autoimmune diseases, infected wounds, or chronic inflammation.
But the work poses an interesting question: does feeling less always mean that the body is getting better?
Perhaps pain, itching, and other internal sensations are not just unpleasant noise that the brain wants to muffle. They may be part of an ancient communication system between the nervous system and the body.
And if so, the ability to consciously feel what is happening inside oneself takes on a different meaning. We are not just observing the body. Under certain conditions, attention itself can become part of the process by which the body regulates and repairs itself.
