Now I’ve heard it all: Injection may someday cure phobias
Now I’ve heard it all, I think. I just read an article that researchers in Japan are trying injections into the brain of goldfish that seem to cure their phobias.
Okay, so at this stage they’re just experimenting on tiny-brained goldfish. But if that works and they move up the animal scale and eventually find it works on humans — wow!
The substance the researchers inject is a very common anesthetic used in humans, lidocaine. They trained the fish to react with fear to a bright light. They did the injection about half an hour before using the bright light on the fear-conditioned goldfish. The goldfish showed absolutely no reaction to the light.
All pretty preliminary research, sure. But just think about ramifications of this if they develop such injections for humans. They say one of the most common, strongest phobias people experience is public speaking anxiety. (Personally, I could easily and calmly speak to a crows of hundreds of thousands. But I quake in fear and threaten to crawl under the bed and hide during thunderstorms.) Maybe the day will come when you, John Q. Citizen, can get a simple shot in the brain (or arm? or butt?) that will turn you into a golden-tongued orator who can sway millions.
Or, maybe not.