Slashdot Mirror
Controlling Fear By Modifying DNA
An anonymous reader writes "The fear of flying or of skittering spiders can mean more than just a momentary increase in heart rate and a pair of sweaty palms. A hard-core phobia can lead to crippling anxiety. Now an international team of researchers says it believes it has found a way to silence the gene that feeds phobic fear via a novel mechanism of gene regulation associated with fear extinction. The notion appears to be that phobias arise from experiences that have left an outsized imprint on gene expression, and that undoing this can undo the anxiety itself. The study was published this month (abstract) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
At least, that's what Will Smith told me.
Um yea, I don't see ANY potential problems by altering someone's genetics to remove fear. This reads like a bad sci-fi movie plot.
The Divergent series is all about gene manipulation including the fear gene. If only it was a more logical take on a society using gene manipulation. Anyone who read the Divergent series all the way through must be wishing they had this fear controlling gene modified so they wouldn't have had to suffer through the last two books.
Simple feed the children LEAD. IT will suppress the fear triggers and make them far more hostile.
If you want to build the perfect warrior, then just do what the romans and the vikings did. Lead dosing.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They found that learning to extinguish fear causes expression of a gene.
In common western medicine fashion, the important thing here is not that behavioural methods are effective in changing gene expression, but we can now remove the stimulus for gene expression (a persons conscious control) and package it up into a pill to sell for profit!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
they want to screw with our minds? Worse - with fear? You can't like start with getting rid of diabetic tendencies? Or even give us the power to choose our own skin color? One sure way to end racism in the US at least (of course we would probably have to change hair type as well).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I am confident that none of this work was secretly funded by the armed forces.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
>Do any of you realize you are biased against conservatives because you have been *trained* to be?
Does it occur to you that we're biased against conservatives because people who self-identify as conservative keep saying deeply stupid things in public. See just about any Republican politician, or check out the insane conservatives that use tags like #TGDN, #TCOT, and #REDNATIONRISING on Twitter. They just keep feeding each other fake quotes, and reinforcing a hatred of anyone who isn't as delusional as they are. They think that intelligent liberal people are their enemy, when really the enemy is the "conservative" media that filled their heads with nonsense.
Conservative didn't always mean crazy/stupid, but it sure does now.
>what is so bad about individual liberty, natural rights and limited government huh?
Nothing, it's the superstition, authoritarianism, racism, homophobia, and opposition to women's rights that's wrong with the ignorant conservatives.
I don't even have to have all that experience.
'Democrats' - tax & spend
'Republicans' - just spend (~80% of the federal deficit is from Reagan & 2 Bushes)
Which one actually sounds fiscally more conservative?
Neither are really responsible, but at least one tries to have the cash to spend.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
They need to get to work on STUPIDITY. Fear has it's uses.
I could be both good and bad.
The good thing is that religion would end because no one would fear that Hell place that is crammed into ones head as a child, but the bad thing could be that we may die out sooner because we would not fear the bear coming to eat us.
The deeper side though thinks that this might be a GREAT idea because I am afraid of heights and flying. In order for me to get on a plane I have to pretty much take enough sedatives to kill a horse. There isn't anything out there strong enough to where I have no clue of my surroundings. I also have anthropophobia which causes me to work from home and conduct business over the phone, text, email or online. It is very difficult for me to be around crowds of more than 5-6 people at a time.
"That's right...I said it."
fear is probably one of our oldest (evolutionary speaking) emotions. how many other systems within body/mind could possibly rely upon it?
With something as fantastically complex and interconnected as the brain, altering it to handle a superficial manifestation of something as primitive as 'fear' couldn't possibly have wide ranging side effects could it?
There are other phobias that have little to do with normal situations. Such as not afraid of heights but afraid of bridges. Afraid of the number thirteen. And so on.
So you think you just get rid of spider phobia by killing it. How do you kill it if you can't even be in the same room? If you try to kill it with a broom and then your brain starts screaming that it's going to run up the broom and get to you, and that maybe if you stay still it won't notice you're there. It's really funny if it's someone else but it's completely rotten if it happens to you.