People’s bodies are able to subconsciously anticipate important events before it actually occurs, American neuroscientists claimed.

So-called presentiment -- when people are able to sense things before they happen without any clues -- actually exist, according to a study led by Northwestern University neuroscientist Julia Mossbridge. It remains unclear however, just how such anticipatory activity occurs, she added.

Mossbridge’s study was based on hypothesis that physical responses changed seconds before people encountered significant items.

Her team analyzed 26 studies published between 1978 and 2010 where participants were presented with “arousing” and “neutral” images that in random order. They found that participants’ physical reaction spiked seconds before they saw arousing photos.

The researchers argued that at least 87 contrary reports would have to exist to reduce the significance of such studies to mere change. Thus the finding gives weight to existence of presentiment effect, they suggested.

Some scholars however, said the results were inconclusive and Mossbridge’s team may have been biased in search for desired results.

As for the absence of contrary reports, it is possible they existed but went unpublished, suggested cognitive neuroscientist Kyle Elliott Mathewson from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in an e-mail interview with the Livescience.com

Scientists in the past researching presentiment may have simply discarded dozens of reports that failed to indicate its existence.

“Between psychology labs and parapsychology investigations, I can imagine this many failed experiments that go unreported easily,” Mathewson said.