Brilio.net/en - It can be a fear of spiders, the fear of terrorist attacks, of heights, of death or of dark: we all fear something that can sometimes make us numbs. Many of us have something that gives us the creeps. But all fears are ultimately the same.
All fear is produced by the same reaction in our brains, often tied to a memory that can be very hard to erase. Most people can overcome their fear, but it can dominate some people and become a real problem that affects their daily lives.
So far, the only methods we have for treating phobias involve psychoanalysis. Thats a time-consuming process where a patient discusses their fears and past at length with a professional in the hope that a rational interpretation by the latter will eventually trump the hard-wired instinct, or teach them to live with it and overcome through mental exercises.
Unlocking anxiety
Arachnophobia -the fear of spiders and other arachnids
For decades, scientists from all over the world have tried to understand the chemical side of fear. What we knew was that the mechanism was pretty simple: when the brain triggers the fear button, a hormone is released and the overall body can be paralyzed with fright.
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam, gave propranolol to a group of brave volunteers that all suffered from arachnophobia. Just a few minutes after their injection, the subjects attitudes to spiders around went from abject terror to curiosity.
Propranolol, a beta-blocker used to treat high blood pressure, the symptoms of fear were disappearing. Even a year after the experiment, the effects of this very innovative kind of pill were still working on the volunteers, that even show curiosity for the 8-legs insects that they couldnt even look for a few seconds before without risking a heart attack.
The effect is such that even if you still have the memories that caused your phobia in the first place, as Richard Friedman puts it elegantly in The New York Times, your fear would be stripped of its force.
The applications for this drug could be huge, from students who suffer from paralyzing nerves in exams, to workers afraid of losing their jobs and claustrophobic people in tight spaces. Perhaps the most interesting potential use would be for military veterans or car crash victims with post-traumatic stress disorder.
(brl/red)
