Brain surgery patient cured of arachnophobia but develops aversion to music

A brain surgery patient was cured of arachnophobia following an operation but developed a temporary aversion to music.

Dr Nick Medford, a senior lecturer in psychiatry at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), and medical student Sophie Binks, made the discovery, the first of its kind, after observing a patient who had started having seizures and was found to have swollen tissue in part of his brain.

As a result, he had to have his damaged left amygdala, which helps to process emotions such as fear, anger, and pleasure, and determine what memories are stored or removed, a BSMS spokesman said.

When the patient recovered from surgery, he found that his previous intense fear of spiders had completely disappeared, and instead he started to find them "fascinating", the spokesman said.

But the patient developed a temporary aversion to music, which dissipated with time, according to research.

Dr Medford said he believes the phobia could have been cured while leaving normal response fear intact because humans have two different types of fear response.

On removing the left amygdala, Dr Medford suggested that some of the neural pathways specific to this quick panic response may have been eliminated.

In turn, the parts of the amygdala responsible for generalised fear could have remained intact, he said.

A paper detailing the case has been published in the journal Neurocase: The Neural Basis of Cognition.