Fearless woman helps unlock anxiety puzzle › News in Science (ABC Science)
A woman in the US who is incapable of experiencing fear could lead researchers towards a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety conditions.
The study, by researchers at the University of Iowa, University of California, Los Angeles, and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, centred on a 44-year-old woman who is missing a part of her brain essential for processing and acting on fear.
"Normally, the amygdala is constantly sorting through all the information coming into our brain through the different senses in order to rapidly detect anything that might impact our survival," he says.
"Once it detects danger, the amygdala orchestrates a rapid full-body response that compels us to stay away from the threat, thereby improving our chances for survival."
Scientists have known for more than thirty years that the amygdala, a tiny almond-shaped part of the brain, plays an important role in multiple aspects of fear processing. Work with rats and monkeys also demonstrated the amygdala was responsible for fear conditioning, fear recognition and fear-related behaviours.
But little was known about the amygdala's role in the conscious experience of fear, as animal subjects aren't able to report on their internal subjective experience.
That's where the patient referred to as SM comes into the picture. She has a rare condition, which has left lesions on both bilateral amygdala, essentially disconnecting the part of her brain that recognises and processes fear.
The researchers say SM performs within the normal range on standardised IQ tests, memory, language, and perception, and her emotional responses only seem to be limited when it comes to fear.
The authors say by studying SM, they can confirm for the first time that the amygdala is also required for triggering the feeling of fear in humans.
This study could offer wonders to people suffering of PTS but havoc int the wrong hands...
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