Is it possible to lose your sense of fear?

It’s called Urbach-Wiethe disease.

It is a genetic condition that causes damage to the fear-evoking response in your brain, brought by the amygdala:

People with a hyper-active amygdala often have anxiety and heightened fear responses.

Those with an inactive one, well, are fearless—and that’s not a good thing.

Those with Urbach Wiethe often get themselves in very precarious positions. They might laugh in a haunted house, but also try to pet dangerous animals and go into situations where they get hurt.

The same is true of conditions that remove a person’s sense of pain. It might seem like a cool thing, until it isn’t. Those people often walk around with broken bones without knowing it until someone points it out.

Pain and fear are fundamentally important. Our species wouldn’t have made it this far without them.