My Brain Hurts!

A student's hatred for math is not found uncommon when visiting a high school, or any school for that matter. When one expresses severe emotional distress when acquainted with a math textbook, is it out of mere attention? According to an article called, "Just thinking about math can make your head hurt,study confirms" published by Karen Kaplan in The Los Angeles Times, a psychologist from University of Chicago has conducted a study to justify the reasoning behind math anxiety. The researcher gathered fourteen individuals that portray a high level of anxiety when revealed to math. They were kindly asked to solve simple algebra problems; and throughout that time period their brains were being observed by an MRI scanner. Then, another set of fourteen volunteers, who portrayed a comfortable state when it comes to numbers and math, were asked to complete the same task. The latter subjects' brains were also being monitored. Scientist, later, were introduced to a fascinating discovery. Those who felt comprehensive during the experiment,due to their math anxiety, revealed a quite active INSp. The INSp is a part of an organism's brain that is detected to cause pain when stimulated. Therefore, that certain stimulation may be the leading factor of why an individual may feel pain and anguish when doing math. However, the main discovery that astonishes the scientists was that the math-anxious subjects showed the most activity in the INSp portion of the brain-as well as the mid-cingulate cortex, or MCC, which is also involved in processing pain- while waiting for the next upcoming math problem.