Who stole the soul?
A 44-year-old woman with a rare form of brain damage can literally feel no fear, according to a case study published yesterday in the journal Current Biology. Referred to as SM, she suffers from a genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe Disease. The condition is extremely rare, with fewer than 300 reported cases since it was first described in 1929, and is caused by a mutation in a gene on chromosome 1, which encodes an extracellular matrix protein.
