Exploring Neural Idiosyncrasies in Response to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response Videos: Naturalistic Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Stress and Sensory Processing

The results do not provide conclusive evidence that ASMR videos consistently engage stress-related neural networks or that individual stress levels predict neural synchrony during ASMR video viewing. The findings highlight the substantial variability in ASMR engagement across content and individuals, and underscore the need for further research using multimodal physiological measures, larger samples, and stratified designs to identify which ASMR components and viewer characteristics are most relevant to potential stress-relief effects.