Fear On / Off Switch?

This would be very good news for those of us who have issues with having fear, panic, and anxiety responses that don’t work as well as they should.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School’s affiliate McLean Hospital have identified a protein in the brain that serves as a trigger for how we respond to fear, real or imagined. This finding increases the chances that scientists may be able to develop medications that could help regulate this faulty fear switch in people suffering from certain types of anxiety disorders.

In the study, the researchers looked at the neurons in the amygdala of mice lacking the TRPC5 gene and discovered that they did not fire as well as those in the brains of normal mice. At the same time, neurons in the same region of the brain of the mice missing the TRPC5 gene were not as sensitive to the neuropeptide cholecystokinine, commonly released in the brain during situations of innate fear or anxiety…

Let’s hope that this research continues and that we see some pharmaceutical trials of new medications as a result.

Researchers identify a fear on-off switch , via Anxiety Insights