quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-cant-stop-talking-susan-cain

conditioned a rat to associate a certain
sound with an electrical shock. Then
they played that sound over and over
again without administering the shock,
until the rats lost their fear.
But it turned out that this “unlearning”
was not as complete as the scientists
first thought. When they severed
the neural connections between the
rats’ cortex and amygdala, the rats became
afraid of the sound again. This
was because the fear conditioning had
been suppressed by the activity of the
cortex, but was still present in the amygdala.
In humans with unwarranted
fears, like batophobia, or fear of
heights, the same thing happens.
Repeated trips to the top of the Empire
State Building seem to extinguish the
fear, but it may come roaring back during
times of stress—when the cortex
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