8 ms·

A woman who can't feel fear

95 points by tacon 12y ago

golemotron 12y ago
This sounds a lot like sociopathy. I've read that sociopaths are not scared like normal people are in frightening situations. Maybe dysfunction of the amygdala is part of that too.
- blisterpeanuts 12y ago
  I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Who knows, it might have conferred a survival advantage in our distant past--bands of nomadic hominids might have had to kill and even eat each other at times.
  - mutagen 12y ago
    Interesting connection, the article mentions she is an artist and is often unable to draw or read a fearful expression on someone.
  - zo1 12y ago
    >"I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others." Perhaps they fail to empathize or sympathize with their "future self", which is who they view as the recipient of whatever it is they should be scared of currently. Though of course, IANAP.
    - thret 12y ago
      I don't think failure to sympathize with 'future self' is limited to sociopaths. I could give some common examples but I was up until 7am so I'm a little fuzzy at the moment.
      - tomsthumb 12y ago
        Getting absolutely tanked on cheap booze is a good example.
        im3w1l 12y ago
        whoosh
  - tjradcliffe 12y ago
    Sociopathy is more likely related to mate competition than cannibalism, which is almost never practised for food, but rather for its ritual significance. Cannibalism was fairly widely and routinely practised in pre-political states--to the extent that in Polynesia there is a prion disease that appears to have evolved with cannibalism as a vector--but even amongst peoples where it was practised, in times of starvation people would mostly starve rather than eat each other. A number of early European explorers (including Champlain, if memory serves) describe ritual cannibalism--generally the consumption of prisoners, who were first tortured to death in that holistic and natural way First Peoples had--but also describe people starving to death in times of want without resorting to it. In the case of this woman, her amygdalae have been damaged by Urbach-Wieth disease, which according to the article is extremely rare. That said, it is likely that there is a wide distribution of various types of emotional response in the populace due to variations in neurological capability.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      > pre-political states How is this not a contradiction in terms? Non-political humans seem impossible.
  - jonalmeida 12y ago
    That's a very interesting thought. If that hominid was indeed superior, there would be more of those genetic traits still around, but it's fear which is a double edged sword - it makes some wiser, and some not-so-wise. Or maybe it's our turn (the homo sapiens who have fear) turn to die out, letting more fearless ones take place. Although, this sounds more of a fictional novel waiting to be written.
Davesjoshin 12y ago
Reminds me of this podcast from earlier this week.. http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/ http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/
- jonathanwallace 12y ago
  That's exactly what they reference in the first couple of paragraphs.
- steveax 12y ago
  Great episode - I highly recommend it.
gwern 12y ago
This reminds me of discussions of pain asymbolia or not being able to feel pain (diabetes, leprosy): it's a crippling and dangerous problem. Fear, pain, guilty - the gifts no one appreciates.
- ThrustVectoring 12y ago
  Emotions are there for a purpose. Specifically, they're big levers in the brain for getting certain kinds of actions in certain kinds of situations. Anger, sadness, excitement, and everything. If you take a look at what causes them, and what people do when they have those feelings, you can get an interesting glimpse at our ancestral environment.
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  By lumping them all together, you are implying that fear is a gift. The NPR podcast on the other hand suggests otherwise. SM describes herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times, and she has no past trauma. Sounds like being fearless is in fact the under-appreciated gift.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    I think you miss the point. She describes herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times because she is also unable to notice the real dangers that fear is there to help us handle. While it may be great to not feel afraid, as the article points out it also leads her to risky behaviour that most healthy persons would avoid.
    - jdimov 12y ago
      That's because most healthy people are wrong. There are no risks or dangers worth fearing.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        If you want to stay alive that is blatantly false.
dewarrn1 12y ago
I've had the privilege of working with the patient described in the podcast. She's unique in any sense of the word.
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  Excellent! Could you say something about her emotional life? In the podcast, she described herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times. I wonder if she experiences love. And if she does, does she also experience grief? What about fear-based emotions (such as separation anxiety)?
  - dewarrn1 12y ago
    First, I should point out the original work of Ralph Adolphs, the Damasios, and Dan Tranel on this case [0]. It's a short, important paper that started this whole line of investigation based on the single extraordinary case of SM. In my interactions with her, SM was uniformly happy, and it's my impression that she's like that in everyday life as well. A former labmate, Justin Feinstein, wrote an interesting paper based in part on observing her in real-world settings [1]. He didn't observe fear in any of a variety of potentially frightening contexts — she generally confronts such contexts with laughter or wonder. Regarding love, she's deeply attached to her family. I distinctly remember stopping when we walked past the hospital chapel so that she could pray for members of her family. I can't say as much about grief, but she never seemed anxious in any of the time that we spent together, and she certainly never got angry or even upset. [0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7990957 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7990957 [1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167712 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167712
    - SafariDevelop 12y ago
      Thank you. I find it interesting that you describe her to be "uniformly happy" yet your former lab mate, Justin Feinstein (along with Adolphs, Damasio, Tranel), uses "adverse consequences of living life without the amygdala" to describe her. And when he (they) concluded the paper by writing "[SM's] behavior, time and time again, leads her back to the very situations she should be avoiding, highlighting the indispensable role that the amygdala plays in promoting survival by compelling the organism away from danger." were they thinking of the experimental situations (snakes, haunt houses) in mind or real world situations? I ask because for someone living in a "poverty-stricken area replete with crime, drugs, and danger" at the age of 44 being held at knifepoint/ gunpoint 4 times seems par for the course. Even so, what evidence is there that SM went back to the very situations she should be avoiding in real life (i.e., not experimental situations of poking snakes and monsters). For example, did she go back to the situation that put herself at knifepoint (the incident which she handled fearlessly by saying "go ahead and cut me")? I can't help but think that the authors are bringing their own bias (that fear-response is essential in modern times) when concluding as that. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I'm very interested in the topic of fear.
simula67 12y ago
What would stop a person like this from killing herself if she is truly depressed ? What stops her from killing herself out of curiosity ? Would she make a better or worse soldier ? I wish this woman did an AMA.
- berberous 12y ago
  I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? Or does her lack of fear not encompass anxiety?
  - SafariDevelop 12y ago
    Great questions. > I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? In the podcast, she does describe herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times. > Or does her lack of fear not encompass anxiety? I asked someone who had met her in person a similar question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927905
  - Coding_Cat 12y ago
    >I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? I would say yes, often times depression manifests itself not as a feeling of fear or dread but as apathy. See for example Hugh Laurie's personal life [1,2] or Nine Inch Nails' Everyday is Exactly the Same[3] which captures that exact feeling. Or of course the wonderful Hyperbole and a Half's account of depression[4], especially the second part makes the point that depression at its worst is a void. No positive feelings, but also no negative ones. Now I made myself sad^H^H^H apathetic going through those sources. Why does Trent Reznor have to be so good at projecting? As for the anxiety bit (anxiety and depression are to completely different things), the article mentions her response to having her blood-co2 levels elevated, which seems to me to be a standard anxiety response. A feeling of restlessness and dread. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Laurie#Personal_Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Laurie#Personal_Life [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2316880/Playing-House-nightmare-says-Hugh-Laurie-250-000-episode.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2316880/Playing... (I know, I know, Daily mail but the quotes are worth it) [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Aj9_8t1eQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Aj9_8t1eQc [4] http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.nl/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.nl/2011/10/adventures-in-d...
ggambetta 12y ago
I wonder whether she has done truly awesome things with her life. One of these pieces of advice you hear often regarding your true vocation goes something like _what would you do if you had no fear?_. Well, she literally hasn't. So is she an Olympic champion who fights crime during the night and writes amazing novels during the day and commutes to work swimming together with a school of piranhas, or has she led a relatively normal life? She can follow her passion with no fear of failure or success or whatever! I'm genuinely curious to find scientific evidence about whether fear is the only thing holding us back or there are other factors.
- egeozcan 12y ago
  I think what they really mean by fear, in those advice, is actually "learned helplessness". You refrain from applying that great position you've always dreamed of, because you "fear" that being rejected would crush your dreams. This is a complex thought. What this woman lacks, as I understand, is something more elementary.
  - SafariDevelop 12y ago
    Isn't the "complex thought" of "learned helplessness" actually based on the elementary "fear" instinct? That is: no fear, no learned helplessness (only intelligent appraisal).
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  Gabriel, I'm delighted to read this comment by you (and that of David Warren) as you folks get this article in a positive light. Look at others bringing in sociopathy and "real dangers".
cheshire137 12y ago
This didn't feel like much of an article. I'm super interested in hearing her responses to the interview questions, but the article just kind of stops!
robotresearcher 12y ago
Seems like after every popular science radio show / podcast, a raft of 'articles' appear that are just cribbed summaries of the show. Either there's just not enough material out there, or writers are very lazy, or these are essentially promos for the original show. In any case, if you consume science journalism with any appetite, this is pretty frustrating. How about writing a new story, people?!

95 points by tacon 12y ago

This sounds a lot like sociopathy. I've read that sociopaths are not scared like normal people are in frightening situations. Maybe dysfunction of the amygdala is part of that too.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago
I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Who knows, it might have conferred a survival advantage in our distant past--bands of nomadic hominids might have had to kill and even eat each other at times.
- mutagen 12y ago
  Interesting connection, the article mentions she is an artist and is often unable to draw or read a fearful expression on someone.
- zo1 12y ago
  >"I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others." Perhaps they fail to empathize or sympathize with their "future self", which is who they view as the recipient of whatever it is they should be scared of currently. Though of course, IANAP.
  - thret 12y ago
    I don't think failure to sympathize with 'future self' is limited to sociopaths. I could give some common examples but I was up until 7am so I'm a little fuzzy at the moment.
    - tomsthumb 12y ago
      Getting absolutely tanked on cheap booze is a good example.
      - im3w1l 12y ago
        whoosh
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Sociopathy is more likely related to mate competition than cannibalism, which is almost never practised for food, but rather for its ritual significance. Cannibalism was fairly widely and routinely practised in pre-political states--to the extent that in Polynesia there is a prion disease that appears to have evolved with cannibalism as a vector--but even amongst peoples where it was practised, in times of starvation people would mostly starve rather than eat each other. A number of early European explorers (including Champlain, if memory serves) describe ritual cannibalism--generally the consumption of prisoners, who were first tortured to death in that holistic and natural way First Peoples had--but also describe people starving to death in times of want without resorting to it. In the case of this woman, her amygdalae have been damaged by Urbach-Wieth disease, which according to the article is extremely rare. That said, it is likely that there is a wide distribution of various types of emotional response in the populace due to variations in neurological capability.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > pre-political states How is this not a contradiction in terms? Non-political humans seem impossible.
- jonalmeida 12y ago
  That's a very interesting thought. If that hominid was indeed superior, there would be more of those genetic traits still around, but it's fear which is a double edged sword - it makes some wiser, and some not-so-wise. Or maybe it's our turn (the homo sapiens who have fear) turn to die out, letting more fearless ones take place. Although, this sounds more of a fictional novel waiting to be written.

Davesjoshin 12y ago

Reminds me of this podcast from earlier this week.. http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/ http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/

jonathanwallace 12y ago
That's exactly what they reference in the first couple of paragraphs.
steveax 12y ago
Great episode - I highly recommend it.

gwern 12y ago

This reminds me of discussions of pain asymbolia or not being able to feel pain (diabetes, leprosy): it's a crippling and dangerous problem. Fear, pain, guilty - the gifts no one appreciates.

ThrustVectoring 12y ago
Emotions are there for a purpose. Specifically, they're big levers in the brain for getting certain kinds of actions in certain kinds of situations. Anger, sadness, excitement, and everything. If you take a look at what causes them, and what people do when they have those feelings, you can get an interesting glimpse at our ancestral environment.
SafariDevelop 12y ago
By lumping them all together, you are implying that fear is a gift. The NPR podcast on the other hand suggests otherwise. SM describes herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times, and she has no past trauma. Sounds like being fearless is in fact the under-appreciated gift.
- vidarh 12y ago
  I think you miss the point. She describes herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times because she is also unable to notice the real dangers that fear is there to help us handle. While it may be great to not feel afraid, as the article points out it also leads her to risky behaviour that most healthy persons would avoid.
  - jdimov 12y ago
    That's because most healthy people are wrong. There are no risks or dangers worth fearing.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      If you want to stay alive that is blatantly false.

dewarrn1 12y ago

I've had the privilege of working with the patient described in the podcast. She's unique in any sense of the word.

SafariDevelop 12y ago
Excellent! Could you say something about her emotional life? In the podcast, she described herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times. I wonder if she experiences love. And if she does, does she also experience grief? What about fear-based emotions (such as separation anxiety)?
- dewarrn1 12y ago
  First, I should point out the original work of Ralph Adolphs, the Damasios, and Dan Tranel on this case [0]. It's a short, important paper that started this whole line of investigation based on the single extraordinary case of SM. In my interactions with her, SM was uniformly happy, and it's my impression that she's like that in everyday life as well. A former labmate, Justin Feinstein, wrote an interesting paper based in part on observing her in real-world settings [1]. He didn't observe fear in any of a variety of potentially frightening contexts — she generally confronts such contexts with laughter or wonder. Regarding love, she's deeply attached to her family. I distinctly remember stopping when we walked past the hospital chapel so that she could pray for members of her family. I can't say as much about grief, but she never seemed anxious in any of the time that we spent together, and she certainly never got angry or even upset. [0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7990957 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7990957 [1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167712 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167712
  - SafariDevelop 12y ago
    Thank you. I find it interesting that you describe her to be "uniformly happy" yet your former lab mate, Justin Feinstein (along with Adolphs, Damasio, Tranel), uses "adverse consequences of living life without the amygdala" to describe her. And when he (they) concluded the paper by writing "[SM's] behavior, time and time again, leads her back to the very situations she should be avoiding, highlighting the indispensable role that the amygdala plays in promoting survival by compelling the organism away from danger." were they thinking of the experimental situations (snakes, haunt houses) in mind or real world situations? I ask because for someone living in a "poverty-stricken area replete with crime, drugs, and danger" at the age of 44 being held at knifepoint/ gunpoint 4 times seems par for the course. Even so, what evidence is there that SM went back to the very situations she should be avoiding in real life (i.e., not experimental situations of poking snakes and monsters). For example, did she go back to the situation that put herself at knifepoint (the incident which she handled fearlessly by saying "go ahead and cut me")? I can't help but think that the authors are bringing their own bias (that fear-response is essential in modern times) when concluding as that. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I'm very interested in the topic of fear.

simula67 12y ago

What would stop a person like this from killing herself if she is truly depressed ? What stops her from killing herself out of curiosity ? Would she make a better or worse soldier ? I wish this woman did an AMA.

berberous 12y ago
I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? Or does her lack of fear not encompass anxiety?
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  Great questions. > I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? In the podcast, she does describe herself to be happy 9 out of 10 times. > Or does her lack of fear not encompass anxiety? I asked someone who had met her in person a similar question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8927905
- Coding_Cat 12y ago
  >I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? I would say yes, often times depression manifests itself not as a feeling of fear or dread but as apathy. See for example Hugh Laurie's personal life [1,2] or Nine Inch Nails' Everyday is Exactly the Same[3] which captures that exact feeling. Or of course the wonderful Hyperbole and a Half's account of depression[4], especially the second part makes the point that depression at its worst is a void. No positive feelings, but also no negative ones. Now I made myself sad^H^H^H apathetic going through those sources. Why does Trent Reznor have to be so good at projecting? As for the anxiety bit (anxiety and depression are to completely different things), the article mentions her response to having her blood-co2 levels elevated, which seems to me to be a standard anxiety response. A feeling of restlessness and dread. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Laurie#Personal_Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Laurie#Personal_Life [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2316880/Playing-House-nightmare-says-Hugh-Laurie-250-000-episode.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2316880/Playing... (I know, I know, Daily mail but the quotes are worth it) [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Aj9_8t1eQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Aj9_8t1eQc [4] http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.nl/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.nl/2011/10/adventures-in-d...

ggambetta 12y ago

I wonder whether she has done truly awesome things with her life. One of these pieces of advice you hear often regarding your true vocation goes something like _what would you do if you had no fear?_. Well, she literally hasn't. So is she an Olympic champion who fights crime during the night and writes amazing novels during the day and commutes to work swimming together with a school of piranhas, or has she led a relatively normal life? She can follow her passion with no fear of failure or success or whatever! I'm genuinely curious to find scientific evidence about whether fear is the only thing holding us back or there are other factors.

egeozcan 12y ago
I think what they really mean by fear, in those advice, is actually "learned helplessness". You refrain from applying that great position you've always dreamed of, because you "fear" that being rejected would crush your dreams. This is a complex thought. What this woman lacks, as I understand, is something more elementary.
- SafariDevelop 12y ago
  Isn't the "complex thought" of "learned helplessness" actually based on the elementary "fear" instinct? That is: no fear, no learned helplessness (only intelligent appraisal).
SafariDevelop 12y ago
Gabriel, I'm delighted to read this comment by you (and that of David Warren) as you folks get this article in a positive light. Look at others bringing in sociopathy and "real dangers".

cheshire137 12y ago

This didn't feel like much of an article. I'm super interested in hearing her responses to the interview questions, but the article just kind of stops!

robotresearcher 12y ago

Seems like after every popular science radio show / podcast, a raft of 'articles' appear that are just cribbed summaries of the show. Either there's just not enough material out there, or writers are very lazy, or these are essentially promos for the original show. In any case, if you consume science journalism with any appetite, this is pretty frustrating. How about writing a new story, people?!