Regions of the brain linked with the experience of physical suffering were activated¹ in those fearful of maths when they were presented with a tough equation（方程式 ，等式）, researchers have found.

 

The higher a person's anxiety of a maths task, the more it increases activity in regions of their brain associated with visceral（内脏的，本能的） threat detection, and often the experience of pain itself, according to researchers Ian Lyons and Sian Beilock, from the University of Chicago, who had their study published in the journal Plos One.

 

However, they say their study examines the pain response associated with anticipating an anxiety-provoking event, rather than the pain associated with a stressful event itself.

 

A maths task itself is not painful but merely the thought of it is highly unpleasant to certain people.

 

"Math can be difficult, and for those with high levels of mathematics-anxiety (HMAs), math is associated with tension, apprehension² and fear," the authors said in their paper titled, When Math Hurts.

 

"Interestingly, this relation was not seen during math performance, suggesting that it is not that math itself hurts, rather, the anticipation³ of math is painful.

 

"These results may also provide a potential neural⁴ mechanism⁵ to explain why (people with) HMAs tend to avoid math and math-related situations, which in turn can bias⁶ (those with) high levels of mathematics-anxiety away from taking math classes or even entire math-related career paths."

 

"We provide the first neural evidence indicating the nature of the subjective⁷ experience of math-anxiety."

 

The researchers used 14 people with HMAs and 14 who had low levels of maths anxiety.

 

The subjects were then asked to complete word tasks and maths tasks.

 

Other forms of psychological stress, such as social rejection⁸ or a traumatic（创伤的） break-up, can also elicit⁹ feelings of physical pain.

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