Scientists Say They Can Remove Fear From the Brain

Next step... remove stupidity from the brain.

originally posted by: JesusXst
Now if only they could remove

The heartbreak of a thousands knives

piercing though the heart of the broken.

I'd sign up.

For that you would need an excellent cardio vascular surgeon performing microscopic surgery with teeny tiny tools.

a reply to: eisegesis

Just a most excellent thread with an awesome personal touch.

a reply to: Bramble Iceshimmer

I guess the military will be all over this. Remove fear of death, fear of being shot and several others to create better soldiers.

Interestingly, despite numerous engagements, I never felt fear.

Annoyed that someone was shooting at me. Irritated that mortars and rockets were disturbing my sleep. But never actually afraid.

God only knows I've had plenty of reasons to be afraid. But in those moments all I could really be is focused.

I wasn't the only one either. It wasn't until we lost a whole crew that I feared anything while in combat. But it wasn't fear for myself as much as for my soldiers.

I thought fear were kind of receptors . If you look at the animal Kingdom most animals would be dead by now if they didn't have fear?

originally posted by: SPHARAOH

originally posted by: JesusXst
Now if only they could remove

The heartbreak of a thousands knives

piercing though the heart of the broken.

I'd sign up.

For that you would need an excellent cardio vascular surgeon performing microscopic surgery with teeny tiny tools.

All things are possible to those who believe

originally posted by: 0bserver1
I thought fear were kind of receptors . If you look at the animal Kingdom most animals would be dead by now if they didn't have fear?

It's a really complex feedback loop involving the limbic system, memory, and your endocrine system. If you break the loop pretty much anywhere, you can alter the fear reaction.

In this case, they're going after the memory aspect of it. To some extent (possibly a great extent) every time you recall something, you partially erase the recollection, then store it again, usually with alterations. This is why your memories drift. Some memories are stored more permanently, and some less, depending on the source, but this happens with most of them.

They are getting the person to recall the disturbing memory, or some aspect of it, and then causing the memory to be re-coded as not alarming prior to its being stored again. This, to some extent, is how exposure therapy works.

Normally at first thought I jumped right to THIS might help a lot of people who have PTSD and those needing EMD?

Theoretically it would be a better alternative than the drugs with the accompanying side effects and work maybe faster than years of therapy? Normally I'm not a fan of messing with peoples brains, but knowing a couple of friends who have debilitating PTSD anything that would bring relief would be a Godsend.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: Bramble Iceshimmer

I guess the military will be all over this. Remove fear of death, fear of being shot and several others to create better soldiers.

Interestingly, despite numerous engagements, I never felt fear.

Annoyed that someone was shooting at me. Irritated that mortars and rockets were disturbing my sleep. But never actually afraid.

God only knows I've had plenty of reasons to be afraid. But in those moments all I could really be is focused.

I wasn't the only one either. It wasn't until we lost a whole crew that I feared anything while in combat. But it wasn't fear for myself as much as for my soldiers.

Years ago I read an article how the military designs manuals. Example is how they state aim "center mass" instead of "center chest". The article cited many examples.

This study doesn't present anything new IMO. Scientists have known this for a long time. Takes something awful and associate it with something casual or fun. Use repetition. Eventually the awfulness isn't so bad.

a reply to: eisegesis

Remove fear from the human equation and i imagine it will significantly change our fight or flight process.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: Bramble Iceshimmer

I guess the military will be all over this. Remove fear of death, fear of being shot and several others to create better soldiers.

Interestingly, despite numerous engagements, I never felt fear.

Of course not. You felt apprehension. NEVER fear. That's what we were always drilled on, anyway.

I can recall a lot of times when I was very apprehensive, though. Generally, not once things got going. More during the thinking about what I was going to do stages.

I think I went past annoyed when people were shooting at me, though. That was a bad tendency that got me NJPd hard right at the end.

No thank you. While a few times fear has stopped me from doing things I wish I had done, it has many more times saved my life. My natural instinct, and natural fear indicator has truly been a blessing. I'll keep mine.

-Alee

originally posted by: 0bserver1
I thought fear were kind of receptors . If you look at the animal Kingdom most animals would be dead by now if they didn't have fear?

From my point of view based on the articles:

Seems they are doing small recalibrations of what you fear and use Ultrasound to teach the brain including the amagydala to give and enhanced bliss relaxed state instead of fear react state.

With the reward system the amagydala is able to create in the brain it would not surprise me is they are having orgasmic bliss feelings instead of fear when they are doing the ultra sound.

www.quantumconsciousness.org...

In the first TUS study on human mental states,11 our group showed that 15 seconds of 8 MHz TUS to fronto-temporal cortex from temporal scalp at 150 mW/cm2 resulted in 40 minutes of improved mood compared to sham exposure. Further studies12 have shown optimal mood improvement with 2 MHz TUS for 30 seconds to right fronto-temporal cortex. In some cases, vertex stimulation (targeting cingulate cortex) resulted in uncontrolled laughter, "out of body" experiences and feelings of being "more in the moment". High frequency (gamma synchrony) EEG was increased near the TUS stimulation site.

Some people where even pushed out of body in this study.

a reply to: LittleByLittle

Now you know why Thync dropped their home cranial ultrasound design.

Just dont let them drive, already enough fearless crusaders out there.

Great! Now you won't have fear - except the fear of fear itself.

originally posted by: Bedlam
a reply to: LittleByLittle

Now you know why Thync dropped their home cranial ultrasound design.

Thanks for the name Thync.
I remember that Stuart Hameroff in some video was talking about someone creating a cheap home machine. Do not remember if it was Thync or another company.

When you say dropped do you mean it will not be sold? Can you clarify?

www.digitaltrends.com...
www.thync.com...

I got a shiver reading that.

More than once.

This isn't something that should be monetized, or used in any nonexperimental way, or on any humans. Poking around and ripping stuff out just isn't a good way to look under the hood, in my opinion.

The miliatary will misuse this regardless.

My instinct is to fear this. Because I fear where it will lead. I fear freedoms we might lose. I fear a over-controlling government and a compliant citizenry. And yet throughout our history we were confronted by progress of this sort and felt its foreignness. It brought us wonders and yet it frightened us. Some of us turned hostile to it. Some of us embraced it.

Time will tell whether it works for us or against us. My gut feeling is it'll work for us, but like most things it'll have shortcomings. I guess this goes without saying. Or maybe it doesn't, depending on who you ask.

And on the subject of "reprogramming" the brain's responses, how about reprogramming greed responses/memories? Sometimes I wonder what our society would be like if greed was treated as a mental disorder. Only the worst forms of it would be treated this way, like with fear.

I present an example. just seeing money makes you more greedy/selfish:
www.livescience.com - Mere Thought of Money Makes People Selfish...

The results could explain why the topic of money can be so detrimental to a couple's lasting bond.

"In our experiments, the people who are reminded of money really worked hard toward their own goals. But that might not be conducive to a good interpersonal relationship," said study leader Kathleen Vohs of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

A take-home message, Vohs explained, is that "cooperation really goes down the drain when money is an issue."

We can debate good/bad and what it's, but I think eventually our society will arrive at a clinical definition after comprehensive study and treat it. None of this happens independently. It's all interconnected.

originally posted by: LittleByLittle
When you say dropped do you mean it will not be sold? Can you clarify?

The original Thync prototype used a sort of bike helmet looking setup with distributed ultrasound transducers. The idea was to use beamforming array techniques to focus the net sonic energy on various locations inside the head, to produce a very specific sort of response.

It was dropped. The current Thync is a sort of a tdcs thing, with both AC and DC components, and it's not as exciting or useful as the other rig. Also not nearly as dangerous, I'd suppose.

There was another ultrasonic stimulator setup a few years ago, not unlike the thync prototype, that was going to be a game interface. That got dropped too. You can do a lot, pro and con, with the right setup, I'd bet. But it's probably not a good idea for home use.