Fearlessness is a trait of psychopaths. It appears that the amygdala is dysfunctional in psychopaths :<p>" the amygdala is crucial for stimulus–reinforcement learning and responding to emotional expressions, particularly fearful expressions that, as reinforcers, are important initiators of stimulus–reinforcement learning. Moreover, the amygdala is involved in the formation of both stimulus–punishment and stimulus–reward associations. Individuals with psychopathy show impairment in stimulus–reinforcement learning (whether punishment or reward based) and responding to fearful and sad expressions. It is argued that this impairment drives much of the syndrome of psychopathy. Stimulus–reinforcement learning is crucial for socialization, for learning that some things are bad to do, and individuals with psychopathy fail to take advantage of standard socialization techniques."<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606709/?tool=pmcentrez" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606709/?tool=pm...</a>
While one may want to be fearless or without the ability to feel pain, they are essential emotions and sensations. The lack of either can be life threatening.<p>Its common among those who cannot feel pain to have bitten of their tongue or crushed their own teeth or jaw bone. Inability to feel pain is often accompanied by inability to sense temperature. People afflicted by this disease rarely live beyond their 20s. The reason being that they cannot monitor and correct for their bodies inner core temperature. The run a way fever or hypothermia turns fatal.
"Previous studies with this patient revealed she can't recognize fear in facial expressions, but it was unknown if she had the ability to experience fear herself."<p>People have been say "it takes one to know one" for a long time, but real evidence that we can't recognized something unless we have that same capacity within ourselves would be piercing.<p>Tell me again why are so many self proclaimed good people are convinced that everyone else is evil?
><i>Researchers put out their best foot to try to scare the patient, who they refer to as "SM" in their write-up in the most recent issue of the journal Current Biology. Haunted houses, where monsters tried to evoke an avoidance reaction, instead evoked curiosity; spiders and snakes didn't do the trick; and a battery of scary film clips entertained SM.</i><p>The rest of the article aside: I don't think that's <i>quite</i> conclusive. After a few such trials, it'd get merely interesting or boring, and I have to wonder how skilled at frightening <i>specific</i> people researchers can ever be. On a more fundamental level, I highly doubt you can even perform an accurate test along these lines with a person's consent.<p>"People" as a whole? Easy, someone's always afraid of something at-hand. A single person, who knows what you're doing? Unlikely. Case in point: a little work with acclimating to spiders, and I'd pass those tests with flying colors. Haunted houses and scary film clips fall somewhere between mild amusement at the attempt and outright boredom, and I like snakes. Plus, snakes don't have legs / claws; get the head under control, and you're fine.
It's interesting that most of her other emotions function normally. It was my understanding that the amygdala facilitated a number of emotions, not just fear. Am I wrong?
Research into this could have clear and fascinating military applications. They're already well aware that a controlled psychopath is an asset:<p><a href="https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/bd7eed04567bfe2b85256e3b002f29c1?OpenDocument" rel="nofollow">https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/bd7eed04567bfe2b85...</a>