Welcome to The STEM Sessions Podcast – the podcast that encourages you to do your own research. I am your host, Cody Colborn.
Starting in mid September, Haunt season takes over Southern California
- While haunts aren’t unique to southern california, the extent to which we do them is
- Mini-golf courses, aquariums, private homes, schools, malls, parks, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Sea World, and the park that started it all, Knott’s Berry Farm, all build mazes, festivals, and shows designed to scare you
- Haunt season is such a big deal here, that during the pandemic when everything was closed, we saw the emergences of drive-thru haunts like haunted carwashes
I went to my first haunt in 2019 – it was Dark Harbor at the Queen Mary
- I was hooked
- For the last three years, I’ve purchased the season pass to Knott’s Scary Farm and I go at least once a week
I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting upon why I like it so much
- Why do I like being scared and chased to the point I feel weak and need a day to recover
- After a lot of thought, I have my answer
- The details are too personal to broadcast here, but they involve being in a safe, controlled environment in which I can completely let down my guard and be able to react viscerally to my surroundings
But then I wanted to know, in a general sense, why do so many of us love being scared
- Why do we love it so much that we start looking forward to Haunt season in March
- So did my usual deep dive – this time into the biology and psychology of fear
This is The STEM Sessions Podcast Episode 32 – The Science Behind the Fear
No agreed upon scientific definition for fear
- Some say fear is the processing and conscious recognition that occurs between observing the stimulus and responding to it
- If so, how much self awareness does an organism need to experience fear?
- Is it limited to humans or do other big brain animals like whales or apes feel fear?
- We’ve all seen our pets act scared, but are they experiencing fear or is that just our interpretation?
- Do mice feel fear, or do they just react
- So because fear is without definition, in this in this talk, the term fear will be used in the colloquial dense because there really isn’t a better term
All organisms, even single cell organisms, have the capacity to detect and respond to potentially negative stimuli in order to improve their chance of survival
- That said, there is nothing specific in our shared genetic code – no fear gene – that gives organisms this ability
In higher level organisms, fear response seems to be centered in the amygdala
- Portion of the brain located in the temporal lobe
- Also Linked to emotional processing like anxiety
- Studies have removed amygdala from animals and they cease displaying a fear response
But organisms without an amygdala still show aversion to negative stimuli, so the amygdala can’t be all there is to it
Fear also seems to come in different varieties
- Fear of predators, fear of pain, fear of rejection, and so forth
- Each type of fear has a different active neural networks and nuclei, some not involving the amygdala
- Type of stimulus (sight, sounds, smell) can also lead to areas of the brain processing the fear
So fear, at least in humans, seems to be a combination of instinctual reaction to stimuli AND processing it at a higher level of consciousness
Let’s talk about the instinct part of the equation
- Instinct to avoid danger, probably developed fairly early on
- Single cell organisms such as bacteria or white blood cells have the ability to detect chemical signals in the nearby environment
- They also have the ability to react to signals, such as moving towards signals of a positive environment or away from signals of a negative environment
As life evolved from single cell organisms to more complex forms, this instinctual response also become more complex
- Vertebrates and arthropods share a centralized attention response that simultaneously and automatically directs eyes, ears, nose to any startling or otherwise important stimulus
- Response controlled by the brain anatomy called tectum – in humans, roughly in the midbrain, a part of the brainstem
- Mechanism is first step towards reflexes and instinctive response patterns like fear
When extant arthropods and vertebrates share a common trait, it’s highly probable, if not certain, a common ancestor also had this trait
- Last common anecstor between vertebrates and arthopods lived around 500 million years ago in the Cambrian age.
- Interestingly, the Cambrian is also when we see evidence of predation emerging
- So it’s very likely that fear processing became more complex as the environment became more dangerous during this time, and has continued to evolve since
During the 19th-century debate surrounding evolution, scientists studied the “face of fear” – wide-eyed, gaping grimace
- See this in Edvard Munch’s painting the Scream and in the movie poster for Home Alone
- Scientists asked why do people across the board make that face when they’re terrified?
- Darwin said it was a result of the instinctive tightening of muscles triggered by an evolved response to fear
- To prove his point, he went to the reptile house at the London Zoological Gardens
- Stood as close as possible to the glass while a puff adder lunged toward him on the other side
- Every time it happened, Darwin flinched and grimaced
- He wrote in his journal, “My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been experienced.”
- He concluded that the entire fear response is an ancient instinct that has been untouched by the comforts of modern civilization
- Obviously not a double blind study, and it was also self serving, but it makes a good story and point of discussion
For humans, there are other factors involved in fear beyond instinct.
- We have the ability to anticipate
- We anticipate terrible things that might happen, that we have heard about, read about or seen on TV
- Most of us have never experienced a plane crash, but that doesn’t stop some from sitting on a plane with a lot of anxiety
- Most of us have never been bitten by a snake, but we know the damage they can do and this avoid them
Even anticipating a fearful stimulus can provoke the same response as actually experiencing it
- Can be argued this anticipation is also an evolutionary benefit: Those humans who felt rain, anticipated lightning and remained in the cave until the storm passed had a better chance of not getting struck with thousands of volts of electricity
Early fear in humans and animals was probably sense of panic
- Panic would be an advantage if it helped you avoid predators
- If animal showed no instinct to panic, the predator takes it down easily, and that individual is taken out of the gene pool
- If animal panics, that may cause the predator to temporarily stop its pursuit to analyze the situation, and that moment might be enough time for the animal to escape predation, and thus living to procreate and pass along its genes
While a lot of evidence points to the capacity to feel fear being inherent, it’s not universally expressed
- Number of island species that lived in environments completely devoid of predators which didn’t exhibit any type of fear or danger avoidance at all
- Fear could be a derived or learned emotion that only develops in contexts where danger is present
- Part of brain chemistry, but not always turned on
- It can be lost in a population over a number of generations when it’s not needed
- May develop as a survival strategy if danger is introduced slow enough for a species to adapt
What we humans have today is complex and not likely to be comparable to what early life started with
- Our ancestor species developed it one small change at a time until we get to the point of adding in a frontal lobe where we get to enjoy the process of thinking about and contemplating our fears.
- More conscious and more analytical about it
What happens when a you sense fear?
- Always learned about fight or flight
- In a split second, you decide to fight the danger in front of you or run away from it
- But like most facts we learned, this is an over simplification
There is a third choice – freeze
- You see this in young animals like deer and cows before they are weened
- You see this in prey animals like rabbits
- They freeze in hopes the predator doesn’t see them,
- Choosing to run later if the predator gets too close
Adding even more complexity, some theories apply categories of risk assessment, hiding, and screaming
Regardless of the model, during a fear response, the brain fires up your adrenal system, releasing adrenaline, cortisol, and other hormones
- Heart rate and blood pressure increase
- Breathing increases
- Blood flows away from the core and into the limbs preparing them to move
- Blood sugar increases as glycogen is released from the liver, providing immediate energy to your muscles
- Digestion slows down
- Muscles tense
- Pupils dilate
These reactions are all advantageous in the moment – they ready you to fight or run
- However, they’re also very taxing on the body
- They burn energy
- They cause stress build up
- Cause anxiety
To help our systems return to baseline, our brain gives us a release of the feel good hormone dopamine
- As our fear response evolved to keep us alive, this release of dopamine was critical to keep us from burning out
- It made us feel good, it calmed us down
- It helped us return to normal
- But because modern humans rarely face threats to their lives, our fear response has other implications
- We have the same biological responses to fear, but we have other means of relaxing and taking care of ourselves, so the dopamine is no longer just about returning to a baseline
- It’s taken on a new roll
- It’s become a reward
In fact, getting scared without being in real danger can be very cathartic
- Improves our mood, it gets our blood pumping
- The stress from fear can actually relieve other stresses
- You get that adrenaline rush and dopamine hit
Psychologists use fear based therapy to help patients overcome past trauma
- Overcoming something that causes you anxiety is an accomplishment and our brain rewards us with more dopamine
- Accomplishment and overcoming obstacles has been heralded in human cultures across the globe for thousands of years
- You see it in stories from Norse sagas to Native American lore
People sharing a common fear response often become bonded
- And the icing on the cake is those biological changes we undergo during the fear response overlap greatly with the biological changes experienced during sexual arousal
- Take all of this into account, and it’s no wonder the wiring in our brain can be manipulated during fear responses
But there is still a difference between between good fear and bad fear – and that’s knowing whether or not the danger is real or fake
- Young kids can’t distinguish between real danger and fantasy danger, so fear can be very traumatizing and scarring for them
- As we age, our sense of safety grows and we can make the distinction between real danger and fantasy danger
And that allows us to chase the fear dragon, be it by watching scary movies or skydiving or letting pretend monsters scare the crap out of you in a haunted house
Thank you for listening to this episode of The STEM Sessions Podcast; researched, written, and produced by Cody Colborn. Shownotes can be found at thestemsessions.com. Feedback and corrections are always welcome.
If you received value from this episode, and wish to give some back, please visit thestemsessions.com/valueforvalue for ways to support the podcast.
Please remember, STEM belongs to everyone. We should not allow it to be siloed or gate-kept by experts, policy makers, or talking heads. Bias is found in every message, so always verify what you read and what you’re told.
Until the next episode, stay curious.
REFERENCES
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-do-we-like-to-get-scared
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/science/21obbrain.html
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/fear3.htm
https://nautil.us/how-evolution-designed-your-fear-236858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595162
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595162