Researchers have found that a 44 year old woman referred to as "SM" is unable to feal fear. For three months, the woman kept a diary in which she recorded levels of specific emotions that she felt throughout the day. While she felt normal levels of other emotions, her average score for fear was zero percent. The researchers also gave her several standardized questionnaires meant to identify fear, and they attempted to scare SM by exposing her to snakes, spiders, scary movies, haunted houses, and other common sources of fear, but she only reacted with mild curiosity.
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SM has a rare condition called Urbach–Wiethe disease. It has destroyed her amygdala, a part of the brain that has been linked to fear reactions in various animals. This is the first study to confirm that the same region is responsible for feelings of fear in humans. These findings could lead to treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that causes soldiers and others who have experienced distress to constantly feel endangered.
There are positive and negative aspects of being incapable of fealing fear. SM has been held up at knife point and at gun point, physically accosted, nearly killed, and threatened with death several times, but she did not feel fear in any circumstances. Her lack of fear may make it harder for her to avoid threatening situations, which may explain the frequency with which she has been threatened.
NOS Themes:
- Science is repeatable. The researchers said that they would like to find other people with damaged amygdalas to confirm their findings. Unfortunately, the condition is rare, so these patients are hard to find.
- Science is predictable. Despite the previous lack of research connecting the amygdala to the experience of fear in humans, scientists would likely have predicted that this was the responsible region.
This is really cool! I never thought that there were actually people out there who could not feel fear. I think it would be nice to not be scared of things that won't harm you, but then again not being able to feel fear would also mean not being able to sense danger. It will be interesting to see if they can use this woman's lack of fear for something in the future.
ReplyDeleteThat is really interesting! I have never heard of somebody actually being fearless. Is this condition life threatening or is this something she can live with, but as you stated in your summary that it has got her into dangerous situations because she cannot feel fear. I found another article based on SM and it said that she made risky investments and has experimented in economical games because she is not afraid of loosing money. This seems to me that having this condition is more negative than positive.
ReplyDelete(http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/neurophilosophy/2013/feb/03/neuroscience-health)
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ReplyDeleteAlong with the Urbach-Wiethe disease, there is a similar effect that happens when the amygdala is destroyed. In another article I found, scientists have found that the amygdala "controls a biological mechanism for inhibiting risky behavior when outcomes are potentially negative". Because of this, a destroyed amygdala encourages risky behavior, such has risky gambling.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=amygdala-loss-aversion
As commented, this disease promotes risky behaviors because of the lack of fear.In another site that talks about fear, I found that along with the amygdala, fear is caused by a chain reaction in the brain that results in a release of chemicals that cause physical and emotional events to occur (http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/fear.htm). These include a racing heart, fast breathing, and energized muscles. Something that may not be so credible about this experiment is how the scientists were able to test SM’s fear response. There is not really a way to measure her level of fear, so she may just be exaggerating. Although the disease, Urbach-Wiethe, is real, there could be other parts of the brain linked to fear other than the amygdala that can function even if a person has this disease. I think that this experiment would have to be repeated to confirm the findings.
ReplyDeleteAs Adriana said above, I don't think that it would be a good idea to try to use this disease to treat mental conditions. I'm not going to discuss that it leads to other risky behaviors, because the two people above me have already mentioned that. I do want to talk about the fact that giving people this disease is not an effective or practical method of dealing with conditions like PTSD and depression. The disease that this woman has is genetic and it would be incredibly expensive to try and extract her DNA and use it for other people. Cognitive therapy has proven to be the best way in dealing with fear and I don't think it's practical to try and swap DNA or remove part of someones brain just to make a person fearless.
ReplyDelete^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbach%E2%80%93Wiethe_disease
DeleteThis article really intrigued me. I had no idea a condition like Urbach–Wiethe existed. The fact that one area of the brain could be destroyed, but the essential functions continue to perform normally is astounding. What does this discovery say about other emotions? Could the absence of different feelings in other individuals be attributed to similar conditions? It also brings to question the significance of the amygdala in all of us. If some of us are scared more easily than others, could that be due to an overactive amygdala, or are there other possible variables that may be affecting these differences? I found one article that explains more about the role and purpose of the amygdala in our brains.
ReplyDeletehttp://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1749