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Fears are formed when we associate things with a strong, negative emotional response. Now, a team of scientists have developed a technique which lets them erase new emotional memories from the human brain—which could make it possible to wipe out your fears for good.
When the brain learns something, a memory is created through a process called consolidation: at first the memory is unstable, but proteins form in the brain to fix it in place. By disrupting the way that process is carried out, it’s possible to affect the content of a memory. This new study, published in Science by researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden, shows that it’s possible to erase emotional memories by interrupting consolidation processes in the brain.
The team of researchers showed participants neutral images—pictures of landscapes, everyday objects, those kinds of things—but simultaneously administered electric shocks. Basically, they were creating a “fear memory” by associating image content with pain. Shown the picture again some time later, the participants, unsurprisingly, exhibit some level of fear.
However, the team attempted to disrupt the consolidation stage in half the participants, by showing them the image repeatably—this time without any shock—during the period of time over which the brain fixes the memory in place. The results show that the groups whose memory-making process was disrupted weren’t scared when they saw the image again: in other words, the scientists were able to wipe the fear memory.
While it’s not a finding you can necessarily use in everyday life, the researchers are confident that they can develop the finding so it can be used in the treatment of anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks. As a grown man with a long-standing fear of dogs, to me this sounds like great news. [Science via Uppsala]
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They call it “Alcohol”
Unfortunately, that tends to induce a new set of fears (daylight, work, loud noises etc…)
This only occurs if you overdo the treatment, the scientists call this “the Marcelo effect”.
The Marcelo effect is quite good, not the day after though.
Not all fears are irrational
Isn’t that one of the difference between fears and phobias?
I believe so.
Lets put this to the test and put an person with Arachnophobia in a room with hundreds of these;
http://i.imgur.com/9Pmul.jpg
Surprised at lack of photo of one of the Men In Black guys holding up one of those memory erasure pens to the camera!
“you will no longer be afraid to go out riding your bike at night without lights…”
Hang on, so basically the researchers have worked something out that people have known for years?
If you’re afraid of dogs, you need to find a really nice dog and spend time with it, therefore removing the fear. This is nothing new, in fact, they use it to treat PTSD. They get soldiers suffering from it to play games like Call of Duty repeatedly, which removes the fear created in the theatre of war.
The way I read it you have to experience the alternative event/treatment straight away to avoid the memory even being built correctly. Playing CoD when coming back home would be a different effect.
I did read a while back that if distracted right after a traumatic event by given a simple (computer) game will do a similar job and prevent the brain to process it in such a way that the person gets PTSD from it though. I guess that could be of actual benefit.
If you soon see an ambulance arrive after a nasty car crash and hand out tetris games – you know why
That’s interesting! So just any distraction does the job. Now that I’m impressed by!