Eleonora Maggioni, researcher at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of the Politecnico di Milano, is the principal investigator of the SUBRAIN project, currently underway at the Department of Mental Health of the Policlinico of Milan (Director: Prof. Paolo Brambilla) and funded by the BIAL Foundation.
The project aims to explore the emotional-behavioral and cerebral response to awe in 30 healthy volunteers and 30 subjects with depression. Awe is a complex emotional experience of a self-transformative nature, in which wonder, amazement and uncertainty are combined. The clinical hypothesis is that this experience could increase the sense of empowerment and self-awareness and one's potential, and therefore could have therapeutic potential in the context of depressive disorders.
SUBRAIN explores the potential of a new protocol for generating and studying awe that integrates clinical questionnaires, virtual reality (VR), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The experience of awe is induced through exposure to interactive VR natural environments – snow-capped mountains, a waterfall, the vision of the Earth from space – validated by the research group of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, in particular by Dr. Alice Chirico, who is the project's co-principal investigator. VR navigation is accompanied by the recording and modulation of brain activity via EEG and TMS, which allow to study the changes in brain connectivity associated with the experience.
SUBRAIN represents the first study in neuroscientific literature that aims to use a multimodal TMS-EEG-VR approach in the investigation of brain mechanisms involved in processing complex emotions. The study is also at the forefront of the investigation of these mechanisms in individuals suffering from depressive disorders.
In 2022, within Elena Bondi’s PhD project in Bioengineering, the experimental setup was developed and data were acquired from about 20 healthy volunteers, from which the first EEG and TMS-EEG results are currently being extracted. The results obtained so far show how the emotion of awe is related to an increase in brain waves related to relaxation and an increase in connectivity between the two hemispheres of the brain. Furthermore, it has already been seen that these emotions stimulate creativity and the first data are very promising regarding their potential for people with low mood.
Eleonora Maggioni and Alice Chirico are also editors of the multidisciplinary volume “Dalla depressione alla profonda meraviglia: i fondamenti della scienza delle esperienze complesse” (“From Depression to Profound Wonder: The Foundations of the Science of Complex Experiences”), which will be published by Jaca Book this summer.