How to erase fear from your brain
September 24, 2012
Amygdala activity predicts return of fear and correlates with recall of fear. Without disruption of reconsolidation (top), fear (yellow) returned. With disruption (bottom), fear did not return. (Credit: T. Agren, J. Engman, A. Frick, J. Bjorkstrand, E.-M. Larsson, T. Furmark, M. Fredrikson/Science)
Newly formed emotional memories can be erased from the human brain, Uppsala University researchers have shown.
When a person learns something, a lasting long-term memory is created with the aid of a process of consolidation, which is based on the formation of proteins. When we remember something, the memory becomes unstable for a while and is then restabilized by another consolidation process.
In other words, we are not remembering what originally happened, but rather what we remembered the last time we thought about what happened. By disrupting the reconsolidation process that follows upon remembering, we can affect the content of memory.
(This is related to a recent Northwestern University finding that a memory is modified during recall (see Why your memory is like the telephone game).
The study
The researchers showed subjects a neutral picture and simultaneously administered an electric shock, creating a fear memory. To activate this fear memory, the picture was then shown without any accompanying shock.
For one experimental group the reconsolidation process was disrupted with the aid of repeated presentations of the picture (“extinction training”) within the “reconsolidation window” (10 minutes).
For a control group, the reconsolidation process was allowed to complete by waiting six hours before the subjects were shown the same repeated presentations of the picture.
So by disrupting the reconsolidation process, the memory was rendered neutral and no longer incited fear. Using a fMRI scanner, the researchers were able to show that the traces of that memory also disappeared from the part of the brain that normally stores fearful memories: the nuclear group of amygdala in the temporal lobe.
‘These findings may be a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Ultimately, the new findings may lead to improved treatment methods for the millions of people in the world who suffer from anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks,” says Thomas Ågren, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Psychology and co-author of the study.
Comments (22)
by ursula
25 years ago after some ten years of spiritual research….so in other words, exploring new ideas about life, purpose, meaning…creation etc…discovering that indeed I do create me own reality…I know it is so but not yet great at it…work in progress……I was guided from internal intuition towards a process, sounds somewhat like what’s mentioned here except mine feels way better…….I taught myself to be able to notice “FEAR” feelings, so stop any reactive projection and instead tune into the sensation and where it presented in the body…..after a while I was able to talk to this part of my-self….as in ask it for the memory….which it would deliver with mind boggling accuracy….including everything about it….as well as what everyone in it was thinking….why they did what they did….I taught myself to examine whatever ‘decision or choice” the event caused me to make….so what lasting conclusions about life and what beliefs were born…..with the wisdom of hindsight I implanted new info/intel or wisdom into my experience and effected a completely new decision, choice and therefore interpretation of the event…..I noticed after returning to the present…..the fear feeling was balanced out….and sometimes immediate radical shifts occur where old habitual behaviors, responses are revoked, Altered and new beliefs obviously installed as the issue never returns….but more amazing….the event becomes the basis for a new wisdom, learning and even an evolutionary leap….the memory is intact but the emotional experience is utterly altered…..since I believe everything happens for a reason….erasing a memory is ridiculous, putting a new spin on it that is personally advantageous…that makes sense
by Rana
After working for 11 years in IT I’m jobless for the last almost 4 years now. I was asked to leave by two of my last employers. I met with an accident that kept me in bed for 8 months with no money for operation. I did not go home since I do not connect with my family. I was rejected (or at least I felt that way) by every woman I took interest in. I do not talk to my parents anymore.
I live in a constant state of fear. My head always feels filled with this uncomfortable liquid anxiety. My heart pounds without any reason. All this for a fearless being that I used to be.
The crux of the matter is fear clouds my mind to the extent that I can’t even think. It’s like a vicious loop. So while fear can apparently help me to achieve more the very same fear resists me from achieving more. Hope you see the point. Despite the conscious knowledge I’ve failed to control the brain freeze it impedes without any apparent reason.
I think I’m close to finishing this whole game pretty soon. But somewhere deep down there’s probably a bit of hope that made me write this. I’m 36 years old and almost entirely hopeless of any revival. If by any chance Mr. Thomas Agren is listening then let me know if you have any advise.
by Dr.Pratt
If I get cut with a sharp knife, that is pain. The thought that this cut could happen again with a sharp insturment, or just getting cut in general…is fear. Fear is an opinion about past or possible future pain or loss. When I work with PTSD clients, I have them relive the triggering event with as much realism as possilbe but at the same time they are telling me exaclty what that event felt like. All of the physical sensations and the thoughts and feelings with those sensations. I now have a base, a template to work from. I then, over many sessions have them go over the event(s) again and again, but this time we relax each sensation each reaction is replaced with a relaxation method. Eventualy the event elicites zero anxiety and zero negative memory.
by walter
Fear is a substantial element of the human species. It helps us to get through life with less risks. Don’t suppress it, keep it alive and kicking.
by torve
I read about this result about two years ago. Conditioned fear-memory can be extinguished in the usual way (produce stimulus, then do nothing), but the extinction is unreliable and the conditioning comes back after some time. But in 2010 (?) some other group found out that extinction is practically permanent if the memory is activated a short time before the extinction procedure. There was a window, starting from 15 Minutes to maybe two hours, in which the old memory became malleable again.
Having a working extinction procedure potentially solves a lot of problems: traumatic experiences and drug addiction are two “hard” problems in which extinction had been tried, but the effects were too weak and vanished over time. I was already wondering if nobody had noticed how incredibly useful this result is…
by kzt
I’m missing something. See the picture once, get a shock. What do you expect the next time? See the picture once, get a shock, then see it 99 more times without a shock, why should you expect a shock the next time?
by Ace
In the old days they called it getting back on the horse after you fell off
by orlando
I can’t stand thew implication that some how “wisdom” of the past is somehow equal to hard science.
by Cliff
Wasn’t this concept discovered a couple of centuries ago: “when you fall off the horse, get back in the saddle.”
by Antikytherapy
This reminds me of work done several years ago to reduce the impact of PTSD from a traumatic event (e.g. car crash) which was to get the person involved to parttake in complicated problems (Mathematical I believe, though I’m not sure) This interrupted the formation of the memory and stopped flashbacks later on.
by Satan
This process scares me.
by Bri
Coming from Satan. I don’t know whether to be happy or scared!
by Marcos Marin
I see what you did there. Very clever, Mr.
Worry not, oblivion is soon to come, Satan.
by Bri
That’s what Satan is all about.
by Jay
That’s great. Now how do I erase fear of stuff that happened well over 10 minutes ago ?
by Gorden Russell
Jay, this research will lead to more research and it will all be figured out. People returning to civilian life after going through the horrors of war could well stand to forget some things.
But then again, I think what Satan might be thinking about is that all those small businessmen in the Tea Party could conspire with their congresspeople to make the rest of us forget that we ever had earned more than minimum wage. Hell, they’ll make us forget about minimum wage altogether and pay us whatever they want. Then they’ll stage midnight raids to round up all the Democrats and make us all forget that they ever existed. They’ll even make us forget that we’re supposed to have another election. We’ll forget that we ever had elections.
by Ralph Dratman
This has already happened.
by Bri
WTF are you guy’s talking about? Democrats, minimum wage, you’ll have to explain yourselves in clearer terms if anybody out here is going to understand you.
by DrDubious
See? You’ve forgotten already!
by Bri
Forgotten what?
by Christian Gehman
But … we’ll all still remember Chappaquondam, right?
by Christian Gehman
Remember it with fun attached about 100 times until the fun supplants the fear.