Short-Term Head-Out Whole-Body Cold-Water Immersion Facilitates Positive Affect and Increases Interaction between...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Cold water immersion (CWI) is linked to improved mood.
• The brain mechanisms behind CWI's affective benefits are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural underpinnings of affective changes following CWI using fMRI.
• To identify brain network interactions associated with increased positive affect and decreased negative affect.

Main Methods:

• Participants underwent a 5-minute cold water immersion.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
• Behavioral assessments quantified changes in positive and negative affect.

Main Results:

• Positive affect changes correlated with specific network interactions (default mode, frontoparietal, salience, visual networks).
• Negative affect changes were linked to distributed network interactions.
• Affective changes occurred independently, supporting the bivalence model.

Conclusions:

• CWI induces distinct neural network changes related to positive and negative affect.
• These findings highlight the integrative effects of CWI on brain functioning and affective processing.