The war in Ukraine has had impacts around the world. Supply chains have been disrupted, the cost of living has soared and we’ve seen the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. All of these are in addition to the devastating humanitarian and economic impacts within Ukraine.

Our international team was conducting a global study on wellbeing in the lead up to and after the Russian invasion. This provided a unique opportunity to examine the psychological impact of the outbreak of war.

As we explain in a new study published in Nature Communications, we learned the toll on people’s wellbeing was evident across nations, not just in Ukraine. These effects appear to have been temporary – at least for the average person.

But people with certain psychological vulnerabilities struggled to recover from the shock of the war.

Tracking wellbeing during the outbreak of war

People who took part in our study completed a rigorous “experience-sampling” protocol. Specifically, we asked them to report their momentary wellbeing four times per day for a whole month.

Data collection began in October 2021 and continued throughout 2022. So we had been tracking wellbeing around the world during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war in February 2022.

We also collected measures of personality, along with various sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, political views). This enabled us to assess whether different people responded differently to the crisis. We could also compare these effects across countries.

Our analyses focused primarily on 1,341 participants living in 17 European countries, excluding Ukraine itself (44,894 experience-sampling reports in total). We also expanded these analyses to capture the experiences of 1,735 people living in 43 countries around the world (54,851 experience-sampling reports) – including in Australia.

A global dip in wellbeing

On February 24 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a sharp decline in wellbeing around the world. There was no decline in the month leading up to the outbreak of war, suggesting the change in wellbeing was not already occurring for some other reason.

However, there was a gradual increase in wellbeing during the month after the Russian invasion, suggestive of a “return to baseline” effect. Such effects are commonly reported in psychological research: situations and events that impact our wellbeing often (though not always) do so temporarily.

Unsurprisingly, people in Europe experienced a sharper dip in wellbeing compared to people living elsewhere around the world. Presumably the war was much more salient for those closest to the conflict, compared to those living on an entirely different continent.

Interestingly, day-to-day fluctuations in wellbeing mirrored the salience of the war on social media as events unfolded. Specifically, wellbeing was lower on days when there were more tweets mentioning Ukraine on Twitter/X.

Our results indicate that, on average, it took around two months for people to return to their baseline levels of wellbeing after the invasion.

Different people, different recoveries

There are strong links between our wellbeing and our individual personalities.

However, the dip in wellbeing following the Russian invasion was fairly uniform across individuals. None of the individual factors assessed in our study, including personality and sociodemographic factors, predicted people’s response to the outbreak of war.

On the other hand, personality did play a role in how quickly people recovered. Individual differences in people’s recovery were linked to a personality trait called “stability”. Stability is a broad dimension of personality that combines low neuroticism with high agreeableness and conscientiousness (three traits from the Big Five personality framework).

Stability is so named because it reflects the stability of one’s overall psychological functioning. This can be illustrated by breaking stability down into its three components:

1. low neuroticism describes emotional stability. People low in this trait experience less intense negative emotions such as anxiety, fear or anger, in response to negative events
2. high agreeableness describes social stability. People high in this trait are generally more cooperative, kind, and motivated to maintain social harmony
3. high conscientiousness describes motivational stability. People high in this trait show more effective patterns of goal-directed self-regulation.

So, our data show that people with less stable personalities fared worse in terms of recovering from the impact the war in Ukraine had on wellbeing.

In a supplementary analysis, we found the effect of stability was driven specifically by neuroticism and agreeableness. The fact that people higher in neuroticism recovered more slowly accords with a wealth of research linking this trait with coping difficulties and poor mental health.

These effects of personality on recovery were stronger than those of sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender or political views, which were not statistically significant.

Overall, our findings suggest that people with certain psychological vulnerabilities will often struggle to recover from the shock of global events such as the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

Luke Smillie, Professor in Personality Psychology, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The human brain is remarkably complex, with trillions of connections that control how you move, think and feel.

Yet it’s still vulnerable to debilitating conditions such as paralysis, stroke, epilepsy and various neurodegenerative diseases.

Scientists are investigating if a kind of technology, known as the brain-computer interface, could help patients move and communicate better.

So how does it work? And what are the potential risks?

What is a brain-computer interface?

A brain-computer interface works by reading electrical signals produced by the brain, which it translates into digital signals that an external computer can understand. The computer then sends instructions – such as the command to move a cursor, steer a wheelchair or read a sentence aloud – back to the brain. This whole process happens in real time, allowing patients to do tasks more independently.

There are two types of brain-computer interfaces:

Non-invasive

Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces are worn externally, usually in the form of electroencephalogram headsets. An electroencephalogram, or an EEG, is a type of test that measures activity in the brain. This technology is already available on the consumer market, found in everything from meditation apps to video games.

Invasive

Invasive brain-computer interfaces are surgically implanted. This involves placing electrodes – devices that carry electrical signals from the body to medical instruments – directly onto the exposed surface of the brain. These interfaces aim to help restore key functions such as speech and mobility in people with a disability, caused by conditions such as stroke or spinal cord injury.

It is this second category that’s attracting attention from investors and scientists. Several companies – including early developer Blackrock Neurotech, Australian-owned Synchron, and Elon Musk’s Neuralink – are racing to get implantable brain-computer interfaces to patients.

Under current regulations, only a handful of clinical trial participants globally can access this technology. But this may change as interest grows. The international brain-computer interface market is expected to be worth roughly A$14 billion by 2033, up from its current value of just under $3 billion.

Their role in health care

Brain implants may sound dystopian, but they are a promising part of neuroscience research.

More than three billion people worldwide live with a neurological condition that affects their motor, communication or sensory functions. Examples include stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury.

Brain-computer interfaces are particularly helpful for communication. In one 2023 study, paralysed patients that used a brain-computer interface were able to communicate up to 78 words per minute. That’s a five-fold improvement from the 15 words per minute achieved by patients in 2021. And recent research shows this technology is still rapidly improving.

Beyond communication, surgeons are using brain-computer interfaces to map brain activity in real time. This is particularly useful during complex or high-risk procedures, where surgeons must protect key brain regions.

Sleep researchers are also using this technology to analyse brain signals in people who may have a sleep disorder, such as insomnia or sleep apnoea. Brain-computer interfaces may be a more accurate way to diagnose and treat such disorders, compared to other methods such as sleep diaries that rely on participant reports.

Scientists are also investigating how these interfaces could be used in rehabilitation, particularly for people with conditions such as depression, epilepsy, stroke and Parkinson’s disease.

What are the risks?

Here are three worth noting.

Physical harm

Any kind of brain implant can cause physical damage that may affect how neighbouring brain regions work.

For example, if there’s bleeding in a part of the brain that controls speech or movement, even a small blot clot could impair those functions. And while infections in the brain are rare, they can cause swelling and further complications if not immediately treated.

Research suggests there are long-term effects of having foreign material inside the skull. Over time, the brain treats the implant as an intruder, forming scar tissue around it in a bid to destroy nearby brain cells and stop the implant from working. Regular movements such as breathing may also create friction between the hard implant and soft brain tissue, causing some brain regions to become inflamed.

Cybersecurity threats

One recent study found a large-scale breach of brain-computer interface systems could theoretically allow hackers to access sensitive neural data, such as patients’ thoughts and memories. Hacking may also enable them to impair a patient’s cognitive functions such as the ability to concentrate, or even manipulate motor signals to affect how well they move. That’s a scary prospect, especially if these devices become more common in health care and other sectors. In the United States, some jurisdictions are already working to protect neural data rights in law, but there are still major regulatory gaps.

Unequal access

Currently, getting a brain implant will set you back between $50,000 to $140,000. That doesn’t include the cost of ongoing maintenance and follow-up care. So ordinary patients are unlikely to access this technology anytime soon, widening the gap between who can and can’t afford to improve their health.

Where to next

Brain-computer interfaces are a promising new technology, but they come with risks.

We urgently need more high-quality research into the long-term effects – both physical and psychological – of permanent brain implants. Importantly, this research should be funded publicly and not just by a handful of large, profit-driven companies.

David Tuffley, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Applied Ethics and CyberSecurity, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.