如何消除恐惧

【英文原文】

Banishing Fear

Banishing Fear: Researchers erased traumatic meMories in adult mice by destroying the molecular 'net' surrounding the relevant neurons, according to a report in Science. After a certain age, netlike structures of proteins and sugars in the amygdala -- the region of the brain responsible for making and altering memories -- make recollections of fear erasure-resistant. But the researchers were able to reverse this process in adult mice by injecting them with an enzyme that breaks down the nets. To test their method, they conditioned these mice, as well as a control group, to fear a sound by pairing it with an electric shock. Then the researchers tried get the mice to forget those fears by playing the sound but not delivering a shock. Both sets of mice temporarily overcame their fear of the sound after reconditioning, but the mice that had been injected with the enzyme did so much faster. More impressively, one month later the treated mice appeared to completely forget the traumatic experience -- as if these adult mice had the brains of much younger mice -- while the control group had resumed fearing the sound.

Caveat: The study was conducted on mice only. More research is required before such findings can be generalized to the management and erasure of human fears.

【中文译文】

根据《科学》（Science）杂志的一篇报导，研究人员通过破坏围绕着成年小鼠相关神经元的分子“网”，消除了小鼠的创伤记忆。在特定年龄后，杏仁体(大脑中负责制造和更改记忆的区域)中蛋白质和糖的网状结构使恐惧记忆产生抗消除性。但是，通过注射一种分解网状结构的 ，研究人员能够逆转成年小鼠身上的这种过程。为了检验他们的方法，研究人员对这些小鼠以及一个对照组播放某种声音并配以电击，使其形成害怕声音的条件反射。然后，研究人员播放声音但不进行电击，试着让小鼠忘记恐惧。在重新形成条件反射后，两组小鼠都暂时克服了对声音的恐惧，但注射了 的小鼠克服得更快。更让人印象深刻的是，一个月后，接受 注射的小鼠看来完全忘记了创伤经历──就像这些成年小鼠拥有年轻得多的小鼠的大脑一样──但对照组重新开始恐惧声音。

注意：该项研究只对小鼠进行。在此类发现推广到控制和消除人类恐惧之前，还需要进行更多研究。