Cdk5: the REAL Threat to the VIX

On the heels of Rob Schumacher's warning that the VIX may be waning, I have just this morning discovered an even bigger threat to the VIX that is brewing in MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

In brief, biochemists at the Picower Institute claimed to have isolated the molecular basis for fear and have successfully treated that fear in mice. In an article in Nature Neuroscience, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, summarizes the research team's findings as follows:

"In our study, we employ mice to show that extinction of learned fear depends on counteracting components of a molecular pathway involving the protein kinase Cdk5. We found that Cdk5 activity prevents extinction, at least in part by negatively affecting the activity of another key kinase."

If science can take the fear out of investing, whither the VIX?