• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Electrical Stimulation To Brain Could Stop Fear Response In People With Phobias

December 20, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

What if we could turn off fear? When it comes to certain stimuli, researchers from Germany believe their electrical stimulation method could do just that, preventing the fear response that happens when some people see things they are afraid of from returning. By zapping specific regions of the brain, the participants no longer had that involuntary fear reaction when exposed to their phobia stimuli after being trained not to, which could mark a significant breakthrough in trauma and anxiety therapies. 

As much as it seems counterproductive, fear is an essential part of humans’ ability to stay alive. Certain phobias, such as snakes and spiders, are thought to have an evolutionary origin, dating back to a time when those who stayed away from venomous creatures were more likely to survive. Fear raises our heart rate, making us more alert in dangerous situations, and can help in making fight or flight decisions that may mean the difference between life or death. We store information about what needs to be feared inside our memory, so that we may respond quickly to fear cues next time – this is called the “fear memory recall”.

Advertisement

Sometimes, we learn that something may be a threat, but constant exposure to linked cues teaches us that we no longer have anything to fear and our fear response to those cues no longer happens involuntarily – this is called “fear extinction”.

However, fear extinction doesn’t always occur, particularly for things such as traumatic events. Despite repeated exposure to cues that might show there is nothing to fear, our body still reacts the same way, and this can contribute to mental disorders. 

“Fortunately, however, we know the brain areas underlying fear extinction quite well and therefore wanted to investigate whether a non-invasive electrical stimulation of these areas might improve the long-term reduction of fear,” said study author Christoph Szeska of the University of Potsdam, according to PsyPost. 

Advertisement

“This might open up new avenues for improving treatment of mental disorders.” 

To test whether non-invasive transcranial stimulation could help, the researchers delivered direct current to the ventromedial prefrontal cortexs of a group of 20 students, while a control group of another 20 received a sham experiment. It was double-blind, meaning no one knew which students would be getting the electricity except the researchers not conducting the experiment. 

First, each student had an uncomfortable (but “not painful”) shock to one hand, as well as a startling noise, to elicit a shock response and try to induce fear. The activity of their eyes, their heart rate, and a questionnaire were used to test how much the students were expecting the next shock. These shocks were linked to them seeing one of two pictures – they got shocked when they saw one, but not when they saw the other. This created a fear memory recall for that picture.

Advertisement

Then, the researchers tried to extinguish this fear by showing the images without the shocks. They then used electrical brain stimulation (tDSC) before showing them the pictures again and measuring their response. Those that received the stimulation reported expecting the electric shocks, but their bodies were doing something different – compared to the control group, they did not experience the involuntary fear response. In the sham group, their bodies were still bracing for the shock. 

While limitations still need to be addressed, the study hints at how powerful non-invasive simulation could be at eliminating the return of fear responses in trauma patients, if the underlying mechanisms are further identified. The researchers now hope to optimize the procedure and push it to clinical trials. 

The research was published in Translational Psychiatry. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Piaggio, KTM, Honda and Yamaha set up swappable batteries consortium
  2. Iran joins expanding Asian security body led by Moscow, Beijing
  3. RBC unit resolves U.S. SEC charges over bond abuses, is fined
  4. IMF says board met with WilmerHale lawyers on World Bank data probe

Source Link: Electrical Stimulation To Brain Could Stop Fear Response In People With Phobias

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Have You Seen This Snake? Florida Wants Your Help Finding Rare Species Seen Once In 50 Years
  • Plague Confirmed In Lake Tahoe Area For First Time In 5 Years, California Officials Say
  • Supergiant Star Spotted Blowing Milky Way’s Largest Bubble Of Its Kind, Surprising Astronomers
  • Game Theory Promised To Explain Human Decisions. Did It?
  • Genes, Hormones, And Hairstyling – Here Are Some Causes Of Hair Loss You Might Not Have Heard Of
  • Answer To 30-Year-Old Mystery Code Embedded In The Kryptos CIA Sculpture To Be Sold At Auction
  • Merry Mice: Human Brain Cells Transplanted Into Mice Reduce Anxiety And Depression
  • Asteroid-Bound NASA Mission Snaps Earth-Moon Portrait From 290 Million Kilometers Away
  • Forget State Mammals – Some States Have Official Dinosaurs, And They’re Awesome
  • Female Jumping Spiders Of Two Species Prefer The Sexy Red Males Of One, Leading To Hybridization
  • Why Is It So Difficult To Find New Moons In The Solar System?
  • New “Oxygen-Breathing” Crystal Could Recharge Fuel Cells And More
  • Some Gut Bacteria Cause Insomnia While Others Protect Against It, 400,000-Person Study Argues
  • Neanderthals And Homo Sapiens Got It On 100,000 Years Earlier Than We Thought
  • “Womb Of The Universe”: Native American Tribal Elders Help Archaeologists Decipher Ancient Rock Art In Missouri Cave
  • 16,000-Year-Old Paintings Suggest Prehistoric Humans Risked Their Lives To Enter “Shaman Training Cave”
  • Final Gasps Of A Dying Star Seen Through A Record-Breaking 130 Years Of Data
  • COVID-19 “Vaccine Alternative” Injection Could Be On Fast-Track To Approval From FDA
  • New Jersey Officials Investigate Possible First Locally Acquired Malaria Case Since 1991
  • First-of-Its-Kind Bright Orange Nurse Shark Recorded Off Costa Rica Makes History
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version