Brain rewiring in response to cold water exposure

The study on cold water immersion also revealed changes in brain activity and connectivity. The MRI scans showed that the brain rewires its connectivity during the cold water immersion to cope with the shock. This rewiring involved unique components of interacting brain networks responsible for resting brain state (default mode network), attention (frontal parietal network), salient processing (salient network), and visual processing (visual lateral network). The positive mood lift experienced after cold water exposure is driven by these changes in brain activity. This study provides new evidence that cold water exposure not only has physiological benefits but also positively affects the brain, resulting in increased positive emotions and decreased negative emotions.