The Woman Who Felt No Fear

The Woman Who Felt No Fear

From Science Vs by Spotify Studios

June 11, 2026 · 43 min

About this episode

This episode explores a woman who feels no fear due to a malfunctioning amygdala and the scientific experiments conducted to understand her condition.

A group of scientists meet a very unusual woman. A key part of her brain isn’t working: the amygdala. This is the part of the brain that we think is responsible for feeling fear. And in fact, this woman does seem pretty fearless. Researchers test her fear response using some very unconventional methods, but she takes everything in stride. Then, finally, they stumble onto the one thing that makes the woman who can’t feel fear absolutely panic. We scare up some science with neuropsychologist Dr. Justin Feinstein. Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsWomanWhoFeltNoFear In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Meet the Woman Who Felt No Fear (04:38) Fear and the Amygdala (10:27) Scientists Start Running Experiments With the Woman Who Felt No Fear (11:48) Scientists Try to Scare SM (12:59) Scientists Try to Scare Her With Snakes (16:08) Scientists Try to Scare Her with a Haunted House (19:58) The Risks of Feeling No Fear (25:46) Scientists Try a New Approach (34:20) How Breathing Too Much Carbon Dioxide Causes Fear This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Meryl Horn. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix…

People in this episode

Host: Wendy Zukerman

Topics covered

  • fear
  • amygdala
  • neuroscience
  • experiments
  • psychology
  • human behavior

Keywords

  • fear response
  • amygdala
  • neuropsychology
  • experiments
  • panic
  • human behavior
  • science

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Spotify Studios

Books & works: Science Vs

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