Mind Medicine - Does fear have an off switch?

“We’ve learned a fair amount of the circuitry that’s involved in generating the initial fear response. We really know relatively little about the circuitry that’s involved in turning it off”   (Richard Davidson, Neuroscientist). 

Is there a reason why this has been neglected? 

Protesters caught on newsprint at Occupy

"Using cannabinoids to overcome fear in the brain"
by Christie Wilcox
Scientific American

" ...in a study published this week in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Duke university have found that marijuana-like compounds and the enzyme that degrades them may be the key to understanding fear’s off switch."


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/06/12/overcoming-fear-in-the-brain/



Why it's illegal to take drugs? Psychedelics might open the soul and motivate it against the greed machine? Marijuana might block out fear so that revolution becomes a possibility. We live in fear; of war, of hunger, of our own anxiety. Some drugs could propel us into a society of equality and compassion.


"You may say that I'm a dreamer..." 

Poppy-cocked

     Experiments on neurons show the ability to control the dopamine response.  This seems quite the breakthrough seeing that the dopamine receptors themselves were only discovered in 1958 by Arvid carlsson.

Artwork by Shirley Novak

Study Shines Light on Brain Mechanism that Controls Reward Enjoyment
Science Daily
by

     "GABA neurons located in the VTA are just microns away from dopamine and are negative regulators of dopamine funtion," Stuber proposes. "When they become active, their basic job is to suppress dopamine release. A dysfunction in these GABA neurons might potentially underlie different aspects of neuropsychiatric illness, such as depression. Thus, we could think of them as a new physiological target for various aspects of neuropsychiatric diseases."

UNC study coauthors include Ruud van Zessen and Jana L. Phillips. 

Coauthor Evgeny A. Budygin is at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. 

"Auditory Neurons In Humans Far More Sensitive To Fine Sound Frequencies Than Most Mammals"

   Does this not imply that sound and music are crucial to the evolution of consciousness? 

Highlights: "The results surprised the researchers. A single auditory neuron from humans showed an amazing sensitivity to distinguish between very subtle frequency differences, down to a tenth of an octave. This compared to a sensitivity of about one octave in the cat, about a third of an octave on average in rats, and half to one octave in the macaque.

"This is remarkable selectivity," said Fried, who is also the co-director of UCLA's Seizure Disorder Center. "It is indeed a mystery why such resolution in humans came to be. Why did we develop this? Such selectivity is not needed for speech comprehension, but it may have a role in musical skill. The three percent frequency differences that can be detected by single neurons may explain the fact that even musically untrained people can detect such frequency differences."

"There is also evidence that frequency discrimination in humans correlates with various cognitive skills, including working memory and the capability to learn, but more research is needed to clarify this puzzle."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080110163845.htm

Loud music prolongs ecstasy's effects on the brain

by Charnicia Huggins

Highlights: "In the absence of the loud music, low doses of MDMA did not affect the rats' brain activity compared with rats given placebo. When combined with the loud music, however, low doses of the drug were associated with decreased brain activity, the report indicates...

Long-term experiments showed that the reduced brain activity among rats given the higher dose of the drug persisted for up to five days, the researchers note. Brain activity returned to normal after one day in rats given a similar dose of the drug who were not exposed to the loud music."

http://www.ezilon.com/information/article_16144.shtml

Singing 'rewires' damaged brain

By Victoria Gill  Science reporter, BBC News, San Diego

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.stm