What if our society comes to the point where we have nothing to fear but...an expired prescription? What if science could wipe our painful memories away, without surgery? What if there were a pill that could eliminate fear, making the individual resistant to his or her own doubts, and thus so much more productive?

There are those who believe that by augmenting brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a biochemical naturally produced in the brain and involved in learning and memory, patients might be able to re-learn painful associations so that the memory becomes significantly less intense, and thus less intrusive and ultimately disabling.

In a study published last year in the journal "Science," injecting BDNF into the brains of rats that had been conditioned to associate a sound with a noxious stimulus, scientists found they could mimic the effects of retraining the rats by targeting with BDNF the part of the brain chiefly involved with the extinction of memory, the infralimbic prefrontal cortex. In other words, a memory of safety is created.

Another study, published this month in "The Journal of Neuroscience," examined fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), which had already been shown to enhance the extinction of conditioned fear in rats. The recently published research found that FGF2 infused into the part of the brain known as the amygdala enhanced extinction recall in rats; but extinction training was still needed for this to occur. Interestingly, and potentially much more safe for humans, is the fact that FGF2 was shown to be effective when given systemically also (I am sure there is no argument that a needle into the brain is a little more dangerous than an IV line in the forearm.)