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MIT Finds Cure For Fear
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:43 PM
from the fear-itself dept.
from the fear-itself dept.
Doom con runs away writes "MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They did this by inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5, which facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context."
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It must be in clinical testing... (Score:5, Funny)
Bzzt! Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
In unrelated news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In unrelated news... (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely, now that he's got the chemical that causes fear identified, the only remaining part of his plan is to sneak down to the water reservoir with Cheney.
Parent
Re:In unrelated news... (Score:5, Funny)
I was afraid something like that would happen...
Parent
Re:In unrelated news... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not news...I found this years ago (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not news...I found this years ago (Score:5, Funny)
Drink is the mind-killer.
Drink is the little-death that brings total obliteration to my little fear cells.
I will face my drink.
I will permit it to pass through me, but not over me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the drink has gone there will be nothing.
Only a yellow puddle will remain.
And thirst. Do not forget the thirst.
Parent
Re:Not news...I found this years ago (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
uh oh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:uh oh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
This is scary (Score:5, Funny)
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Peril Sensitive Sunglasses... (Score:5, Funny)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
What do you mean cure? Fear is not a sickness! (Score:5, Insightful)
Crippling Fear is a sickness! (Score:5, Interesting)
But there are mental illnesses that deal with crippling fears, where extreme fear of seemingly insignificant things can prevent a person from interacting with society in a meaningful way. For those people, this drug could bring relief, and a chance for a normal life. But control is paramount, and I'd need to see a LOT of clinical trial and years in the open market before it gets into military use. Fear will keep you alive on a battle field, but crippling fear will get your unit killed. Not only that, but being in a war zone isn't 24x7 guns blazing and shells falling. It's minutes of near death experiences followed by minutes, hours, days, even weeks of no activity. Knowing that at any second an explosion could rip you to shreds, or small arms fire could light you up. That is the stress that kills, the constant fear tearing at the back of your mind. Some people have even described the start of an attack as a relief, as they no longer do they have to sit in anticipation of the attack. If this drug could help prevent soldier from locking up in high stress moments, and relieve the pressure from the tedium of war, then I could have a solid benefit for the military.
If on the other hand, it takes away their fear of bullets, reprisal, and other control mechanisms... then it is nothing we want to give to anyone with a gun.
-Rick
Parent
Social Anxiety (Score:5, Insightful)
Fear is important (Score:5, Funny)
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, say you were an astronaut on the moon and you fear your partner had been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for moon pieces, WHAM!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, Batman!"
How useful is fear, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is, I doubt the drug will remove awareness of danger, simply the emotional reaction to it. While supersoldiers leap to every SF fan's mind, imagine what this could do for everyone who's got any kind of irrational fear. Fear of flying, fear of public speaking, fear of talking to girls, the whole list of phobias. Even in situations where fear is justified - wartime combatants, for example - I don't know that fear is helpful in comparison to the ability to rationally assess threats.
Regardless, in society at large most people most of the time aren't afraid of real threats, they're afraid of imagined (or at least, disproportionately perceived) threats.
Besides which, even the real threats faced by a significant percentage of people in modern industrialized society strike me as predominantly not susceptible to the "fight, flight, or freeze" response.
Re:How useful is fear, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
The "breakthrough" is about blocking fear not about replacing it with another mechanism.
On a related did you know that we live around half a second in the PAST? That is the delay of the mind. Our brain fakes the memories so we don't notice it practically, but there is a reason why subconscious or gut responses exist.
Parent
RTFA! (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'cure' doesn't eliminate any and all fear. It doesn't address situational fear at all.
What it 'cures' is LEARNED fear responses. It's specific application to, for example, soldiers would be
for PTSD.
And even if there was a way to get read of all fear reactions, you'd still have a BRAIN and the ability
to choose not to do things that you reason are too risky.
Seriously, read the article. It's interesting.
Sheesh.
Cdk5 Inhibition != Fearless (Score:5, Informative)
If I understand correctly, then they are right in saying this would be potentially wonderful for treating cases of PTSD where the fear response does not significantly decrease even at points in time far removed from the initial trauma, but I don't think we have to worry about inhibition of this enzyme erasing people's ability to feel fear or leading to fear-based weapons systems. Those things are almost certainly possible (lesions on the amygdala are thought to tame animals by destroying their ability to feel fear), but I don't think they'll appear as a result of this study.
last I checked (Score:5, Funny)
Like posting without RTFA.
Tom
Re:bad? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent