Erasing Fears & Traumas Based on the Modern Neuroscience of Fear

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2021

⏱️ 133 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I discuss fear and trauma, including the neural circuits involved in the "threat reflex" and how specific experiences and memories come to activate that system. I also discuss how our body is involved in trauma and fear. First, I describe the logic of fear mechanisms and how "top-down" processing-- meaning connections from the parts of the brain that assign meaning to our feelings, are involved in fear and erasing fears and traumas. Then I discuss what successful fear and trauma treatment must include and consider various treatments for whether they meet that standard, such as EMDR, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Ketamine, other drug-assisted therapies, and more. I also review new data on how 5 minutes per day of deliberate, self-imposed stress can erase fear and depression. And I review the role that social connection plays in erasing or maintaining fears by activating specific molecular pathways in the brain and body. Finally, I review supplementation with over-the-counter compounds for their effects on anxiety and fear and when to take them, if at all. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Thesis: https://takethesis.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Introducing Fear, Trauma & Trauma (00:02:15) Sponsors (00:06:49) What is Fear? (00:11:45) Autonomic Arousal: “Alertness” vs. “Calmness” (00:13:44) Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA axis) (00:17:36) “The Threat Reflex”: Neural Circuits for Fear (00:28:24) Controlling Fear: Top-Down Processing (00:32:27) Narratives: “Protective or Dangerous” (00:35:58) Attaching Fear to Events: Classical Conditioning & Memory (00:41:45) How Fear Learning Occurs: Long Term Potentiation, NMDA (00:46:10) Extinguishing (Reducing) Fears (00:50:25) Cognitive (Narrative) Therapies for Fear (00:57:56) Repetition of Narrative, Overwriting Bad Experiences with Good (01:05:28) EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (01:14:00) Social Connection & Isolation Are Chemically Powerful (01:18:23) Trans-Generational Trauma (01:25:00) PTSD Treatments: Ketamine, MDMA, oxytocin (01:39:25) How Do You Know If You Are Traumatized? (01:46:16) Deliberate Brief Stress Can Erase Fears & Trauma (01:49:50) Erasing Fears & Traumas In 5 Minutes Per Day (01:59:42) Nutrition, Sleep, & Other General Support Erasing Fear & Trauma (02:02:30) Supplements for Anxiety, Fear: Saffron, Inositol, Kava (02:10:00) Synthesis (02:11:46) Zero-Cost Support, Sponsors, Supplements, Instagram, Twitter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.8	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.1	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we're going to talk about the neuroscience of fear.
0:17.8	We are also going to talk about trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders.
0:23.0	The neuroscience of fear has a long history in biology and in the field of psychology.
0:28.8	However, I think it's fair to say that in the last 10 years, the field of neuroscience has shed light on
0:35.7	not just the neural circuits, meaning the areas of the brain that control the fear response and the ways that it does it.
0:42.9	But some important ways to extinguish fears using behavioral therapies, drug therapies, and what we call brain machine interfaces.
0:51.2	Today, we are going to talk about all of those and you are going to come away with both an understanding of the biology of fear and trauma.
0:58.4	In fact, we are going to discuss one very recently published study in which five minutes a day of deliberate exposure to stress was shown to alleviate long standing depressive and fear related symptoms.
1:10.8	We will get into the details of that study and the protocol that emerges from that study a little later in the podcast.
1:16.6	But it stands as a really important somewhat counterintuitive example of the fact that the study is very important.
1:22.6	It stands as a really important somewhat counterintuitive example of how stress itself can be used to combat fear.
1:32.2	To give you a sense of where we are going, I'll just lay out the framework for today's podcast.
1:37.1	First, I'm going to teach you about the biology of fear and trauma.
1:41.2	Literally the cells and circuits and connections in the body and chemicals in the body that give rise to the so-called fear response.
1:48.8	And why sometimes but not always fear can turn into trauma.
1:54.2	I will also describe the biology of how fear is unlearned or what we call extinguished.
2:00.0	And there too, you're going to get some serious surprises.
2:03.5	You're going to learn for instance that we can't just eliminate fears.
2:06.7	We actually have to replace fears with a new positive event.
2:10.4	And again, there are tools with which to do that and I will teach you those tools today.
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