Fear - a universal emotion that is caused by a threat of danger, pain or harm. Well, that’s the generally accepted definition. But can you really explain in words how you feel when you have a genuine phobia?
Very soon, you might not need to experience this terror because artificial intelligence will wipe it out from your brain. Researchers have discovered a way to target and eliminate specific fears from the brain, using a combination of artificial intelligence and brain scanning technologies. This new technique could pave a new way for treating patients with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and debilitating phobias.
Up until now, doctors have used traditional methods of therapy, where patients are compelled to face their fears in the hope they will learn that the thing they fear isn't harmful after all.
But, an upcoming technique called ‘Decoded Neurofeedback’ will now scan patients’ brain to observe activity and then simply identify complex patterns that mimic a specific fear memory.
Instead of subjecting patients with long-drawn therapy, researchers flashed 17 healthy volunteers with an electric shock when they saw a certain computer image. For obvious reasons, they quickly began to fear it, exhibiting symptoms such as a faster heart rate and sweating when they saw it. Once they had the pattern of this fearful memory, researchers attempted to ‘overwrite’ this natural response by offering the participants a small monetary reward.
Once the team was able to spot that specific fear memory, they used AI image recognition methods to quickly read and understand the memory information. Such treatments could someday have major benefits over traditional drug-based approaches as well. Or, doctors could simply remove the fear of height or spiders from people’s memory--the process could be as easy as popping into a clinic to get a tooth filled.
Dr Ben Seymour, from the University of Cambridge's Engineering Department said, “The way information is represented in the brain is very complicated, but the use of artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition methods now allow us to identify aspects of the content of that information. When we induced a mild fear memory in the brain, we were able to develop a fast and accurate method of reading it by using AI algorithms. The challenge then was to find a way to reduce or remove the fear memory, without ever consciously evoking it.”
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