Stephen Johnson writes:
‘…[A] psychologist might recommend exposure therapy, in which people with specific fears are voluntarily and incrementally exposed to the very things they fear. The goal is to create new positive memories to silence the fearful ones. These are called “extinction memories.”
Scientists have long associated a part of the brain called the amygdala with fear. However, a new study focuses on the hippocampus — a brain region generally associated with memory and spatial navigation — and describes how extinction memories work not by replacing fearful memories, but rather by competing with them. This competition acts in two ways: by decreasing or silencing the activation of fear-inducing neurons and by activating a distinct set of neurons that help to reduce the fear response….’
Source: Big Think
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