Sunday, February 17, 2013

Human Brain is Divided on Fear and Panic (hr. 2)

Human Brain is Divided on Fear and Panic

Discoveries are made when doctors at the University of Iowa tell a woman in her 40s diagnosed with Urbach-Wiethe to inhale carbon dioxide. What would have normally struck panic into a person had no affect on her, until seconds later. Urbach-Wiethe disease is a condition that has caused extensive damage to the amygdala, which is an almond-shaped area in the brain known for causing fear. John Wemmie, the associate professor of psychiatry at the UI and senior author on the journal Nature Neuroscience elucidates the importance of this when he says, “This could be a fundamental part of explaining why people have panic attacks.” Wemmie also looked at how mice responded to fear, noting that the amygdala can directly detect carbon dioxide to produce fear. Hopefully this new encounter may open doors to treating panic attacks, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and other anxiety-related conditions.

NOS Themes Found:
-Experimentation and study
-Study is tentative and subject to change 
-Science is based of evidence





Link: http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2013/02/04/human_brain_is_divided_on_fear_and_panic.html







2 comments:

  1. I though this was a very good and interesting paragraph. But when I was reading it I wondered what the big difference between fear and panic was because they both cause somebody to be scared. The link below goes more in detail about the differences and possible how carbon dioxide could effect both fear and panic differently.

    http://panicend.com/pf.html

    ReplyDelete