Meapz4Science News!!!
Hello everyone! You can probably tell by the title that THIS post is going to be WAY different Than what I normally do. This is... Meapz4Science News! Today I will tell you about an article I found. It is called Sleep Therapy for Fears. I know, right? It was written by Stephen Ornes. It states that a new study has shown that while sleeping, a person can lessen their fears.
Katherina Hauner and Jay Gottfried are at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. and they made up a test. They recruited 15 volunteers. Hauner and Gottfried showed the participants photos of a man’s face. At the same time, they smelled a particular scent (such as that of lemons) and received a small electric shock. They repeated this experience several times over half an hour for each subject. It started to leave the recruits fearing the face and the scent — because both were linked to the horrible shock. How did they know? There was one way scientists measured this fear: The volunteers sweated more.
After they recorded that data, the scientists had each subject fall asleep in the lab. When the subject fell into the deepest stage of sleep, the researchers put in the fearful smell. Upon waking, these volunteers showed less fear when encountering the once-frightening face and smell. But sleep alone did not erase the fear. What they smelled during sleep was important. The scientists know that because they trained the volunteers to also fear a different face/smell combo. But the researchers didn’t deliver that odor to volunteers while they slept. And afterward, they found that face just as scary as before.
Brain scans also showed that sleep-scent training also altered parts of the brain involved with different memories and/or emotions. The Northwestern scientists and their coworkers published all of these findings September 22 in Nature Neuroscience. The new sleep-scent treatment resembles something known as exposure therapy, Hauner told Science News. During exposure therapy, a person confronts a fear over and over. Such as a person with a fear of spiders may interact with spiders, eventually even learning to touch them. This therapy continues until new, safe memories replace the fearful ones (Yeah, I have a huge fear of spiders, NOT HAPPENING!)
Katherina Hauner and Jay Gottfried are at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. and they made up a test. They recruited 15 volunteers. Hauner and Gottfried showed the participants photos of a man’s face. At the same time, they smelled a particular scent (such as that of lemons) and received a small electric shock. They repeated this experience several times over half an hour for each subject. It started to leave the recruits fearing the face and the scent — because both were linked to the horrible shock. How did they know? There was one way scientists measured this fear: The volunteers sweated more.
After they recorded that data, the scientists had each subject fall asleep in the lab. When the subject fell into the deepest stage of sleep, the researchers put in the fearful smell. Upon waking, these volunteers showed less fear when encountering the once-frightening face and smell. But sleep alone did not erase the fear. What they smelled during sleep was important. The scientists know that because they trained the volunteers to also fear a different face/smell combo. But the researchers didn’t deliver that odor to volunteers while they slept. And afterward, they found that face just as scary as before.
Brain scans also showed that sleep-scent training also altered parts of the brain involved with different memories and/or emotions. The Northwestern scientists and their coworkers published all of these findings September 22 in Nature Neuroscience. The new sleep-scent treatment resembles something known as exposure therapy, Hauner told Science News. During exposure therapy, a person confronts a fear over and over. Such as a person with a fear of spiders may interact with spiders, eventually even learning to touch them. This therapy continues until new, safe memories replace the fearful ones (Yeah, I have a huge fear of spiders, NOT HAPPENING!)
As such, the new findings also suggest that sleep-scent therapy may be able
to help with the success of treatment for disorders like phobias. Phobias
are extreme or irrational fears. (Arachnophobia, for example, is the
fear of spiders.) The new sleep treatment may also lessen deep-seated
fears in people with post-traumatic stress disorder. People with this
condition suffer severe mental or emotional stress after an injury or
shock.
Well, that is the end of the article. Personally, I think that the article is very interesting. I would try it, IF I could ever get to SLEEP in the FIRST PLACE! I like the whole testing thing, but the part with the spiders? NO WAY AM I TOUCHING A DANG SPIDER! They are terror on 8 hideous legs! Anyways, i hope you all enjoyed Meapz4Science News! I don't know if I'm going to do anymore, but I still hope that you guys are enjoying. I'm Emma the meap, and I will see you next time. PEACE!!!
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