The Psychophysiology Of Fear

A polar bear looking through the window of a pickup truck in Alaska. Human reactions to natural stresses like this filter down into business and personal situations, too. Researchers are studying how we can control our fears.

Image: Tom and Pat Leeson/drr.net

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We've all had moments when our hearts are pounding like a Jamaican barrel drum and our palms are clammy; when our nerves are fraying at moments when we need to be sharp and strategic to save ourselves.

Evolution, however, has given us an intricate brain designed to detect dangers that confronted our forebearers millennia ago: the snarl of a saber tooth tiger, say, or the crack of lightning on the veldt.

Our brains aren't made to deal with the equally vicious snap of a boss on a rampage, or the sudden realization that you've been called on to give an impromptu presentation to a zillion-dollar client in front of the executive board of the company.

Deep in the tunnel of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (f.M.R.I.) machine at Stanford University, my brain is being scanned as it relives one of the most anxious moments in my career. It happened years ago, when I was a junior correspondent for Life magazine discussing one of my first major stories, a possible cover, in a staff meeting.

As I was being scanned in the f.M.R.I., researchers flashed a series of short statements on a monitor that recounted my recollection of that event. I can read the snippets inside the machine.

In the staff meeting, colleagues had been saying I'd done a great job on the story, when the managing editor blurted out that another reporter would write it and get the credit.

The suddenness of this put-down felt like an ancient lightning bolt flashing close enough to singe me. I couldn't believe it. Life, like its sister magazine Time, used to routinely have one journalist report a story and another write it, but this had become rare.

As the meeting continued, I felt my heart racing and my gut contracting. I felt ashamed, and I'm sure my face was red.

I knew I should say something to this editor who did look remarkably like a saber tooth with glasses, though without the fangs. I needed to stick up for myself, but my most overriding desire was to flee.

Scientists have long been fascinated by this reaction to episodes of social stress, particularly for those with social phobias that have reactions so extreme they become debilitated.

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