MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory hope that their work could lead to the first drug to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent, debilitating fears - including hundreds of soldiers returning from conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5 facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and colleagues showed.
Conversely, the learned fear persisted when the kinase's activity was increased in the hippocampus, the brain's center for storing memories, the scientists found.
Cdk5, paired with the protein p35, helps new brain cells, or neurons, form and migrate to their correct positions during early brain development, and the MIT researchers looked at how Cdk5 affects the ability to form and eliminate fear-related memories.
"Remarkably, inhibiting Cdk5 facilitated extinction of learned fear in mice," Tsai said. "This data points to a promising therapeutic avenue to treat emotional disorders and raises hope for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or phobia."
Emotional disorders such as post-traumatic stress and panic attacks stem from the inability of the brain to stop experiencing the fear associated with a specific incident or series of incidents.
For some people, upsetting memories of traumatic events do not go away on their own, or may even get worse over time, severely affecting their lives.
A study conducted by the Army in 2004 found that one in eight soldiers returning from Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
According to the National Center for PTSD in the United States, around eight percent of the population will have PTSD symptoms at some point in their lives. Some 5.2 million adults have PTSD during a given year, the center reports.
In the current research, genetically engineered mice received mild foot shocks in a certain environment and were re-exposed to the same environment without the foot shock.
The team found that mice with increased levels of Cdk5 activity had more trouble letting go of the memory of the foot shock and continued to freeze in fear.
The reverse was also true: in mice whose Cdk5 activity was inhibited, the bad memory of the shocks disappeared when the mice learned that they no longer needed to fear the environment where the foot shocks had once occurred.
"In our study, we employ mice to show that extinction of learned fear depends on counteracting components of a molecular pathway involving the protein kinase Cdk5," Tsai concluded. "We found that Cdk5 activity prevents extinction, at least in part by negatively affecting the activity of another key kinase."
First post! heheh
First post! heheh
Second post! heheh
Second post! heheh
squeezed in
Second and a half post! heheh
Wow. Fear is a pretty...uhm,
Wow.
Fear is a pretty...uhm, shall I say, natural emotion. Let's hope this discovery doesn't assume the ability to exploit it for the wrong (read: aggressive, military) reasons. That aside, it sure looks like this might help people who have suffered through horrible incidents in their lives (rape, other violence). There is always room for natural (mental) healing as well. Hopefully people will come to realize that a balance between medicinal and natural cures is probably the smartest choice when dealing with these sort of things.
Military application
Actually, MIT was created as a supplement to military research, so, your worst fears are certain to come true.
Sorry, but you're completely
Sorry, but you're completely wrong. You also use too many commas. Have a nice life somewhere other than MIT.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology
MIT was founded by William Barton Rogers in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States. Although based upon European models of an institute of technology, MIT's founding philosophy of "learning by doing" made it an early pioneer in the use of laboratory instruction,[4] undergraduate research, and progressive architectural styles.
You are actually thinking of
You are actually thinking of MITRE, MIT Research, which used to be part of MIT, but is now its own company.
How dumb
Wouldnt the purpose of using the drug be because in reality, youre scared of to face your fears. Thats sad, and im sure sooner or later they'll take away sadness and grief. If you think about it we're just trying to create a pathetic little bubble around ourselves and emotions. I want to be scared, and afraid, it lets me know im alive, and stronger than someone who resorts to hiding from a natural feeling. Plus lets say you encounter a bear in the forest, but you have 'no fear', and someone would think they could take on the bear because theyre fearless, its instinctual to run because youre scared. Its stupid to stay because you dont fear anything.
Actually if you read, it can
Actually if you read, it can help Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sufferers. Would you tell a woman that was raped to "face up to that fear" it's harder than you'd think.
drugs and consumption stupidity
Well, I agree in part with all that was posted.
As time goes by, it all points to get free to reach a peak of human stupidity: robot soldiers, the power to destroy the world in one reaction, cloning to infinity, reprogramming our brain, supressing madness, etc.
But drugs where sacred to most ancient cultures. And nobody feared a wrong use of them. Today, consumers think that money can buy it all. But stupidity should remain for eternity.
I consumed drugs but have always found the state where I should be careful. It is pointless to try to prove that we have no limits! We are so fragile! Perhaps this technical 'laizes faire' would take us to that notion of our human limits. Who knows! Knowing our limits always makes us change a lot. I agree with MIT's motus.
well i can guarantee you it
well i can guarantee you it will be used for bad. its human nature we could have used, e=mc2 for good, we used it to make a bomb mankind seems not to be able to see the forest threw the trees
Actually, many of the things
Actually, many of the things that people have posted about, such as removing the fear of death, are likely NOT accomplishable with this drug. The drug's effect is aiding in the extinction of learned fears-- such as an irrational fear of heights, spiders, etc...
However, from whats stated in the article, it looks like this inhibitor does NOT prevent unlearned fears from being triggered; this drugs primary ability is to remove specific phobias; not to remove fear.
a phobia is a fear. if they
a phobia is a fear. if they can relieve the fear of hights than why not the fear of death? this is one step closer to "A Brave New World" where people take soma all the time so they feel as if everything is always ok and there are no problems at all. "Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds." "why don't you take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You'd forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. So jolly,".
feeling fear is natural.
I see uber-soldiers, shock troops, nightmares gas...
So many uses for such a simple discovery...
hopefully my fear of spiders
hopefully my fear of spiders and various other insects can finally be cured haha
Hopefully, my fear of
Hopefully, my fear of driving into oncoming traffic will finally be cured.
Shock the Monkey
Those wacky scientists, always looking for reasons to shock some critters.
"Hee heee haaaa, heh heh heh... yessss, we subjected these mice to electric shocks, hee, and they froze in fear! Hehheheheh... This will, um, help people, which are ummm, the most important, ahhh, yes, right. Heh. Excuse, me, I have more critters to shock."
you are an idiot. of course
you are an idiot.
of course people are more important than mice.
Yep. Idiots abound
Yep. And I'm much more important that some theoretical future generation that doesn’t even exit, so I’m going to polute the world and use up all its natural resources. I mean, really, what’s more important than me in the here and now? It’s not like the comments about the scientists and the lab rats were funny or anything. This world is full of idiots, you definitely have that one right.
if this was to be used on
if this was to be used on our soilders, wouldn't you think the death toll rate in Iraq would increase? As none of the soilders and in fear of anything?
This can be good and bad.
This can be good and bad. Good for the "civilian" side of things, but introduction of this into the military for our combat troops would be bad. Fear is actually what helps a soldier to survive when in combat, Fear helps to introduce adrenalin into the system and enhance the "fight or flight" reaction the body has. As a combat veteran, I know just how important that fear is. It saved me before from what very well could have been death.
In some situations...
It can be beneficial to have soldiers who aren't afraid to die. If the fear of death prevents a soldier from following orders which causes a mission to fail, and it costs the lives of other soldiers while saving his own, it would have been better for the individual to die rather than cause the failure of the mission and the loss of his comrades. Then again, that's from a very "Ender's Game" perspective, where victory is more important that the lives of subordinates.
for crying out loud.... NO
for crying out loud....
NO victory has EVER been achieved (as relative as a thing like victory can be), or EVER in NO ARMY OR ORGANIZATION something was succesfully accomplished by FOLLOWING THE ORDERS, THE INMEDIATE ORDERS NOR THE ON-THE-FIELD-ORDERS...as a person who lives and work in the military I can assure you that removing the fear, learned or not, is something that NO MILITARY would like to do...I need my men to fear the enemy, to fear the loss of their own lives or the lives of theeir partners so they CAN Push themselves to the very limits...
and no matter what stupid high rank or politician or whoever has someone under command thinks...the loss of fear, by drugs or exercises or simulations will do NO GOOD...only you can hope that the soldiers actually trust his/hers instruction and teammates...
Complete agreement.
Complete agreement.
I have had anxiety/panic
I have had anxiety/panic attacks for 6 or more years, and I hope this will excel research and ultimately a cure for me and those like me.
same here
panic attacks have plagued me for years, hopefully this is something that could eventually help.
There seems to be a general
There seems to be a general misconception among some of the previous comments. This "treatment" reduces the memories associated with certain fears, not the feeling of fear itself.
[This "treatment" reduces
[This "treatment" reduces the memories associated with certain fears, not the feeling of fear itself.]
This begs the question, do we really know where fear originates? It is possible that all fear is learned from a memory association between eg. pain and action. Without the knowledge of which memories will be targeted, it is more realistic to expect that beneficial fears will be lost along with the targeted fears. Sure, the statements about the government using this might be far fetched. However, it is an issue that needs to be raised as more research in this area is conducted.
Excellent work guys!!!
If only you could cure a hamster's fear of entering the asshole.
Could this help me get past
Could this help me get past my fears of posting comments?
ACK!!!!!
Perhaps they will first
Perhaps they will first release it for use on animals, and we can help my cat stop freaking out everytime something smells funny.
Cure for conservate fear?
Does anybody think this might finally spell the end of the "conservative movement"? After all, irrational fear is kind of their calling card.
If the past six+ years has taught us anything, it's that nothing is too insignificant to inspire fear in a conservative.
what was measured was freezing
Fear was not measured.
Memory was not measured.
Yet the account here is full of talk about memory and memory of fear and memory of pain and so on.
One might expect better from MIT.
Freezing; staying in place; a behavior. That was the dependent variable.
The world will change dramatically with this
Hmm
anyone seen the movie:
Equilibrium
Indeed
Yes I did, and I see your point, just because it is made to help "cure" fear assosiated with memories does not mean it cannot be used in further research that could later tell us how to create a serum that could remove all feelings.
But then again what makes feelings so special? They are just chemical reactions, a mixture of measure.
Can they cure fear of REALLY
Can they cure fear of REALLY hot girls? (not just hot)? LOL. Would help me a lot ahahah
It wouldn't be so good if
It wouldn't be so good if they were to start using that as a sole and only mean to treat fear and emotional disorders. Since emotions are from the mind it's always good to start treatment with the mind.
I am *afraid* this piece off news may be true! :) :)
I am *afraid* this piece off news may be true! :) :)
Be afraid, be very
Be afraid, be very afraid.... and then pop a pill
fear
There is nothing to fear but fear itself.Perhapa not anymore.
life imitates art...
I swear I saw something like this years ago in an episode of the Batman cartoon. Everyone was exposed to a gas that took away all their fears, and they all went insane. Freaky.
Fear was what keeps society in check. We don't kill our neighbor in the heat of the moment because we don't want to go to jail. We don't drive headlong into traffic doing over 150mph because we're afraid to die. Take away the fear... I shudder to think about it.
Besides, the American Military (and probably several other countries as well) have experimented with fear-eliminating drugs several times over the years (LSD, PCP, ect.), that there's no doubt they will be investigating the potential use of this discovery as a weapon, if they haven't already. The article doesn't mention who funded the research in the first place, but does place a strong emphisis on it's use on returning U.S. soldiers... it makes one think, that's certain.
>We don't drive headlong
>We don't drive headlong into traffic doing over 150mph because we're afraid to die.
You're american. You don't do that because it's forbidden in America. In Germany (where i happen to live) it's normal. So sad my car conks out at 106 mph. Well, it's a ford. Should have bought a Volkswagen.
Uhm... NO ONE drives
Uhm... NO ONE drives headlong into oncoming traffic expecting to live. Driving into oncoming traffic would mean that you're driving on the wrong side of the road, with cars coming directly at you. If all Germans do this, they REALLY shouldn't be breeding.
if all Germans would be
if all Germans would be driving on the wrong side of the road, there wouldn't be any problem i guess... :)
yay more fearless
yay more fearless terrorists...
Since fear is actually good, i think they should focus on finding a cure for cancer, aids, ...
Now we really have to worry
Fear, is nessissary!
Black market fear reduction pills
Soldiers come back from Iraq, and say "I have PTSD". The government gives permission for sldier to have pill. Soldiers hoard pills. Anti-fear pills rage on the black market. Soldiers become first-class citizens ---anti-fear "dealers". Bank robbers and rapists, and other people who need to get "hyped up" treat the anti-fear pills like they are gold. Their price rises above gold.
Revolutionaries get ahold of anti-fear pills. They attack the government, and reinstate property rights. The war on drugs is ended. Everyone gets access to anti-fear pills.
The creator of the Nanny State is proven right.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!"
Ha ha ha.
-Jake
fear is actually animportant
fear is actually animportant part of common sense, which there actually isn;tg much of these days anyway. intsead of curing a necessary emotion, how bout u cure something like cancer, or an emotion we actually don't need; greed!
I cannot wait to test drive this
This is going to be a fun drug. Will be much better than snorting Oxy and doing blow. This mixed with my zoloft will make for a nice cocktail....mmmmmmmmmmmm......drugs. 'Buy the ticket, take the ride' - HST
FIRST OF ALL. aniaml testing
FIRST OF ALL. aniaml testing is cruel and wrong. and secondly, MICE ARE NOT AT ALL LIKE HUMANS. great, so suck it.
got a problem with it?
aim - jessicaxjuvenile.
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