No more 'tears for fears', so to speak as researchers may have found a way to cure phobia.
Targeting the fear of spiders in their study, a team of scientists from the University of Amsterdam determined a significant reduction to the level of distress over spiders when the subject afflicted with this anxiety disorder is given pharmacological aid.
The treatment is actually quite revolutionary as it uses the premise of a 15-year old study by Joseph LeDoux where pharmaceuticals when combined with an activation of a fear memory creates a kind of amnesia of the fear - or phobia. The individual forgets to fear the source of their phobia.
In the UA study, the arachnophobic is given a single dose of the pharmaceutical propranolol, a beta-blocker - usually used on patients with high blood pressure.
Merel Kindt, one of the authors of the study, which findings were published in Biological Psychiatry, explains: "Currently patients with anxiety disorders and PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - receive multiple sessions of cognitive behavioural treatment or daily drug intake with a gradual - and often temporary - decline of symptoms. The proposed revolutionary intervention involves one single, brief intervention that leads to a sudden, substantial and lasting loss of fear."
"Here we show for the first time that an amnesic drug given in conjunction with memory reactivation transformed avoidance behaviour to approach behaviour in people with a real-life spider fear. The new treatment is more like surgery than therapy."
Reconsolidation therapy, or the treatment toward forgetting phobia, was tested on 40 arachnophobiacs. Of these, 20 received the beta-blocker dose, while the other 20 were given placebos. The results were quite astounding: the subjects that received propranolol not only displayed diminished aversion to spiders but were also very willing to come in contact with the object of their phobia. The treatment had a year-long effect.
The researchers are now keen to test reconsolidation therapy on other phobias and traumas, and on a bigger number of volunteers.
