This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Psychiatry  • Anxiety Disorders  • Drug Therapy  • Drug Therapy, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2009;301(11):1118.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered a way to weaken or erase fear-provoking memories with a β-adrenergic receptor antagonist, or β-blocker, a finding that might help in the development of treatments for some anxiety disorders and phobias (Kindt M et al. Nat Neurosci. 10.1038/nn.2271 [published online ahead of print February 15, 2009]).

Previous animal studies revealed that fear memories can be altered when recalled, a process called reconsolidation. In the current study, volunteers learned a fear response to images of spiders after receiving a mild shock as they looked at spider pictures; the next day, they were given the β-blocker propranolol or placebo before viewing pictures of spiders. One day later, those given propranolol had a greatly diminished fear response to these images compared with those who took placebo, suggesting that the drug had disrupted reconsolidation of the memory's fearful emotional component.

"Our findings may have . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?