Dr's Casebook: Mathematics really can make your brain hurt

Dr Keith Souter writes: Some people hate mathematics with a passion. Not only that, but they will do their utmost to avoid having to do any mathematical calculation and may actually claim that it makes their brain hurt. Well, actually neuroscience research shows that this may indeed be the case, but it is all due to anxiety about doing maths.

A study was done in Chicago on fourteen volunteers who admitted to having maths-anxiety. This was determined by their results on a questionnaire about mathematics. They were asked questions that measured their anxiety by thinking about their feelings if they were given a maths book, if they were told that graduation would depend upon a maths component, and how they would feel if they had to walk to a maths lesson. They all had considerable anxiety in

these situations, yet in other areas of their life they were not at all anxious.

Brain imaging was then done while they were asked to perform various calculations and confirm certain equations. It was found that the greater the maths anxiety, the more activity showed up in the insula, a deep part of the brain located above the ear. The insula is involved in producing the feelings that we get when we are threatened and when we experience physical pain. It is also very much involved in anticipatory anxiety.

The problem with this heightened activity in the insula is that it can rise

so high that it literally makes the brain hurt and it shuts down activity in the

parts of the brain that are used in performing the calculation or the

mathematical process. The result being that you underperform, or you take

action to avoid having to do it at all. It actually isn’t that you can’t do the maths, it

is just that the anticipatory fear clouds your ability to do it. Lose the fear and

you’ll be able to do the calculations.