Provoking fear in the fearless

摘要

"AM" thought she was dying. Moments after taking a deep breath through the mask that had been voluntarily placed over her nose and mouth she lifted her arms in panic. It was the first time in her life she had experienced fear. This came as a quite a shock to researcherjustin Feinstein, now at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. That's because AM has Urbach-Wiethe disease, which has, until now, made her fearless due to the destruction of a part of her brain called the amygdala. The result challenges the widely held belief that the amygdala is essential for fear.