The Laptev Virus

“She has a lot of confidence in you,” he continued, “rightly so, if I do say so myself. And, this is a great opportunity for your team to be able to help and make a difference. Besides, six weeks isn’t that long, like you said, so you’ll be back to your AIDS research before the end of the summer.”

Sarah exhaled disheartenedly. “You’re right, I know you are. And I said these same things to myself this afternoon. But still, I was feeling bad about it just now, as I thought about it some more.”

John nodded. “Did I tell you about the studies we’ve just started?” he asked.

Sarah shook her head. Her husband worked in the Neuropsychology Department where he led a team that investigated personality disorders. Over the last several years his team had been focusing on fear, attempting to elucidate the specific chemicals that were released in the brain when that emotion was present, and analyzing how those chemicals were metabolized. How could they be adequately managed? Why were some brains more prone to releasing those chemicals, and thus more likely to be fearful, than others? His team also investigated teenage brains, since this age group seemed to not act out of fear. Thus they were asking what went on in adolescent brains as compared to what occurred in adult brains—did they release fewer fear chemicals, which in turn made them more likely to try something more daring, or did they process the chemicals quicker, thus diminishing their effect on the brain?

“We’ve just started working with mouse models. We’ve partnered with a group from Stanford, and we’ll be doing research with specific known triggers. I’m pretty excited about it,” John said, and then, as they sat and sipped their tea, he told her about his new research plans. Instead of the typical scenarios involving mazes and man-made challenges, they would be using triggers that were hard-wired in mice.

“You mean like cats?” Sarah asked.

“Absolutely! My colleague at Stanford has been working with mouse behavior to elucidate what part of the cat induces the fear response. Is it the smell of the cat’s body, the smell of its urine, the sound of its claws on the ground, the look of its fur, its speed, the sound of its meow or hiss, the look of its open mouth, teeth or its eyes—what is it about the cat that induces the most fear in mice?”

“Surely it’s the whole cat, I would think,” said Sarah.

“Maybe, maybe not. For some animals it’s the shape of the body of their predator that induces fear. People who are afraid of snakes, for example, will register systemic reactions to a two dimensional shape of the shadow of a snake. And gorillas are frightened of toy crocodiles.”

“No way! Gorillas are smarter than that, aren’t they?” shot back Sarah, playfully. She loved challenging her husband this way.

“They are quite clever, true, but at least some of them are afraid of toy crocodiles. Let me tell you a story: I once read about a neat set of experiments about a gorilla who was taught sign language. The trainer had an area where she didn’t want the gorilla to go, and she found that simply telling the gorilla not to go there didn’t stop him from doing so. He understood perfectly, but he did it anyway. So she put a toy crocodile there, and the gorilla immediately stopped going to that area.”

“Really? Couldn’t it tell that the crocodile wasn’t real?”

“Yes, I believe so, but it said that it was still afraid.”

“It said?”

“With sign language.”

“Oh, right.”

“Which means that you can’t just assume things about triggers that induce fear. Like you, with spiders.”

Sarah shivered. “I hate them.”

“See, just mentioning the word gets a reaction from you. And now if I draw this,” said John, quickly sketching a frightening image of a spider. He showed it to his wife and she grimaced.

“You see? Intellectually you know it’s only an image, just paper with ink, but it still evokes a visceral feeling from you. So it could be that the shape of a cat will do so to mice as well.”

“But, that can’t possibly be ingrained, John. If the mouse has never seen a cat, it might not know to fear it. I mean, you always hear stories about unlikely pairs of animals becoming friends. Ducks following a dog around, a pig and sheep being friends, things like that.”

John took a sip of tea, considering. “That’s true. Well, we shall see what happens. But the point of this whole story of mine is that you aren’t the only one starting on something new. We’ll both have lots of new things to think about over the coming weeks.”

Sarah nodded and smiled. John always made her feel better, no matter what.

CHAPTER 7