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I find the neurobiological response to fear so incredibly intriguing, especially seeing what things affect individuals versus others. There's such a wide variety to choose from- just search up any old list of phobias on the internet and you'll clearly see that.
It’s fundamental, a deeply wired reaction in our bodies, evolved over the history of life as we know it in order to protect organisms against perceived threat to their integrity of existence.
The amygdala and hippocampus are mostly responsible– the hippocampus processing the perceived threat, and the amygdala givinging that adrenaline rush that we all crave so desperately. This high arousal state can be both from fear or excitement. I don't think it's that much of a leap to suggest that fear and excitement are both connected and therefore can both derive satisfaction.
More importantly, fear can actually help aid your memory. This is of course only to a certain extent, as prolonged distress of high quantities can actually lead to memory loss in self protection, but I would like to theorize for a moment that the reason that so many of those that have contacted me so far, have had memories after viewing the more high tension scenes from their source material is because of the stress neurotransmitter norepinephrine, promoting the formation of fear based memories by stimulating inhibitory neurons in the amygdala while we are so engrossed in the content.
The fear feels familiar because it is. It's been living dormant inside you all along. That being said, I would like to inquire about the most distressing moment for you when viewing your own source material? How did it relate to your identity, and did it lead to memories related to said scene afterwards?
And of course, my dms are always open..
Researchers used mitochondrial gene editing to model genetic disorders in mice. While previous attempts have been made, in-depth phenotypic changes resulting from mitochondrial gene knockout, for example the alterations in observable characteristics when a specific gene is inactivated, remain largely undocumented. So, researchers used a programmable DNA base editing technology to analyze the genotypic and phenotypic impacts of knocking out the ND5 mitochondrial gene, and they found profound impacts on brain function, metabolism, and thermoregulation. They employed a specialized DNA editing tool to induce mutations in the ND5 mitochondrial gene, disrupting energy production and causing learning deficits, hippocampal atrophy, and obesity. I just found this incredibly fascinating as this is the closest we've gotten to documenting when a gene is inactivated like that.