New Study Finds Botox Alters Brain Activity!

If you fill your face with Botox, it might be hard for other people to read your emotions.  

BUT…A new study found Botox might make the person who GOT the injections worse at reading other people’s emotions too.

Researchers at the University of California-Irvine scanned the brains of 10 women before and after they got Botox in their foreheads. 

The point was to see how their brains reacted to other people’s facial expressions. Each one was shown photos of happy, angry, or neutral faces, and they had to guess the emotion being expressed.  And it turned out they were worse at it after they got Botox.

Don’t worry, the botox doesn’t leak into your brain…Scientists think it’s because of something called the “facial feedback hypothesis”, the idea that we subconsciously mimic people’s facial expressions to help us interpret them.

Their theory is that Botox prevents the muscles in your face from doing it as well, and that makes you worse at reading emotions in general.

Let me try and read your face with my face full of botox…You look constipated!

Botox is an injectable that temporarily reduces or eliminates facial fine lines and wrinkles and is popularly used to reduce the appearance of frown lines, forehead creases and crow’s feet near the eyes.

Botox injections have increased by 459% since 2000, becoming the most common minimally invasive cosmetic procedure.

Although most commonly associated with cosmetic procedures, Botox’s ability to prevent muscle movement has been used to treat migraines, neck spasms, sweating, overactive bladders, lazy eyes and other muscular conditions.

Previous research has shown that Botox injections may help lessen depression.