• Question: Does DNA affect fears in any way?

    Asked by anon-204486 on 5 May 2020.
    • Photo: Sonia Rodriguez

      Sonia Rodriguez answered on 5 May 2020:

      That’s a very interesting and complex question. There’s no “fear” gene in your DNA, but it’s known that many different genes can have an effect on how your brain responds to fear and anxiety. Unfortunately I’m not an expert in the topic and I can’t give you a more detailed answer.

    • Photo: Sophie Pritchard

      Sophie Pritchard answered on 6 May 2020:

      Thanks for your excellent question! This has also got me thinking. I agree with Sonia. Fear is not really in your DNA, but it is a biological/body response to a stimulus. A stimulus is a change in your internal or external environment. The fear stimulus sends a message to an area of our brains called the amygdala.The amygdala manages our emotional responses. It also releases a hormone (or chemical) called adrenaline. Adrenaline helps us to make quick decisions. This is known as our ‘fight or flight response’. Do we stay and fight that fear or do we run away from it to protect ourselves? I hope that helps to answer your question 🙂

    • Photo: Alex Holmes

      Alex Holmes answered on 6 May 2020:

      Hi, this is a really good question – and just like others have said it tends to be a biological response to something we’ve learnt to find scary. Although, I do remember a study about mice that showed less “fear” after having one of their genes mutated (here’s a nice article on it from 2005 https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8337-gene-turn-off-makes-meek-mice-fearless/).

      This was looking into phobias and anxiety, because fear and anxiety are normal – it’s how we know to run away from predators and keeps us safe from these things, but sometimes they turn abnormal and get exaggerated, like in phobias or certain really pronounced anxiety disorders. So it was really interesting that they could create a “fearless” mouse in the lab.

      The issue is, when we work with animal models of diseases, especially mental health issues like anxiety, how can we tell the mouse is feeling anxious or depressed or scared? We can’t ask it like we would a person, so we have to rely on it’s behaviour. But all sorts of things could change a mouse’s behaviour without it neccessarily being that it’s not scared. For example, in this study where they played a sound then sent a small shock to the mice, perhaps the mouse just forgot that the sound was related to the shock, or the mouse couldn’t hear the sound as well, or it just doesn’t really care about the shock as much as the other mice. I hope that helps answer the question – even though the answer is we don’t really know how/if genes are involved. And I hope you enjoy reading the article

    • Photo: Amy Mason

      Amy Mason answered on 6 May 2020:

      I would guess that it almost certainly does.
      I work with UK Biobank which is the UK’s largest genetic database (and one of the world’s largest as well!). You can see some of the sorts of data it holds here: http://biobank.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/crystal/index.cgi
      Working on it scientists have found genetic links to such diverse things as “are you a morning person?”, “Ever had prolonged feelings of sadness” and “Would you describe yourself as someone who takes risks?”. Sadly I can’t spot any specific questions on fears or phobia, but I suspect if they were asked we would find genetic links to those as well.

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