December 17, 2010

The case of the fearless woman

The journal Current Biology has published a study of a woman known simply as SM who, because of damage to her amygdala, has no fear response.

She apparently hasn’t felt fear as an adult, not even 15 years ago in an incident described by the researchers. A man jumped up from a park bench, pressed a knife to her throat and hissed, “I’m going to cut you.”

SM, who heard a church choir practicing in the distance, looked coolly at him and replied, “If you’re going to kill me, you’re going to have to go through my God’s angels first.”

The man suddenly let her go. She didn’t run home. She walked.

“Her lack of fear may have freaked the guy out,” Feinstein said.

posted by in science | * | 8 comments 

comments

  1. Cindy Scroggins on December 17th, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    That was me.

  2. Deron Bauman on December 17th, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    I thought maybe the Law Librarian.

  3. Cindy Scroggins on December 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    Nope. Me and my God’s angels.

  4. Deron Bauman on December 17th, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    Y’all are fearless.

  5. Cindy Scroggins on December 17th, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    uh-huh

  6. Joel Bernstein on December 17th, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    I was hoping for a list of all the super dangerous stuff she did

  7. Amy Mabli on December 18th, 2010 at 12:38 am

    I must have an overgrown amygdala.

  8. Joel Bernstein on December 18th, 2010 at 12:56 am

    I think I have an overgrown amygdala in my perennial bed.

Leave a Reply


Ads via The Deck