'Forgetting drug' cures arachnophobia in two minutes
(image) iStock
Some people are so afraid of spiders they set their house on fire and scream so loud their neighbours think they're victims of domestic violence.
But new research shows that arachnophobia could be cured in as little as two minutes.
The study, published in the latest issue of Biological Psychiatry, found that administering a particular drug while a fearful memory is activated made participants forget why they were afraid at all.
Researchers made 45 fearful volunteers' worst nightmares come true by forcing them to interact with a full-grown tarantula for two whole minutes.
During the two minutes, some participants were given a single dose of a drug known as propranolol, a beta blocker traditionally used to treat people with high blood pressure. The rest of the participants were given a placebo.
RELATED: Anxious kids have bigger brain 'fear centres'
Researchers then
The results found that those given propranolol displayed drastically reduced "avoidance behaviour" — some even approached the spider.
The effects of the drug lasted for up to one year.
The breakthrough findings build upon the idea of "reconsolidation", a relatively recent theory that argues fearful memories can be erased from the brain pharmaceutically.
Dr Merel Kindt, one of the authors of the study, said the findings could have massive implications for a whole range of phobias and fear-related conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
"Here we show for the first time that an amnesic drug given in conjunction with memory reactivation transformed avoidance behaviour to approach behaviour in people with a real-life spider fear," says Kindt.
"The new treatment is more like surgery than therapy."
The treatment is not available in Australia, so for the time being you
