Bonding hormone-based nasal spray helps men recognise emotions

May 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 15 (ANI): A nasal spray made of the hormone vasopressin can help boost men’s ability to recognise the emotions of both happy and angry, say scientists.

However, the spray doesn’t improve males’ ability to detect emotions of the neutral, reports New Scientist.

Just like “cuddle chemical” oxytocin improves bonding, vasopressin too drives less cosy aspects of social behaviour, such as aggression.

In their study, Adam Guastella at the University of Sydney in Australia compared the ability of 24 men given the spray to recognise neutral, angry and happy faces with peers given a placebo spray.

The study has been published in Biological Psychiatry.

“There may be an application in people with inadequate recognition of social cues,” Guastella says. (ANI)

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Love ”really is blind”

May 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 13 (ANI): American scientists have made an advance to prove Shakespeare”s dictum, “love is blind and lovers cannot see”.

A brain in love looks like a neurological fireworks display.

The ventral tegmental area and ventral striatum, located in the centre of the brain, light up as the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine spring into action, causing a person to have short attention spans, feel happy and yearn for the object of her desire.

A 2005 study by Rutgers University biological anthropologist Helen Fisher and colleagues analysed the fMRI brain scans of 17 men and women who were reported being madly in love.

Each image showed the same activity in the brain”s reward system as that which takes place in a cocaine addict”s brain.

Moreover, the love-struck participants could readily tick off traits or characteristics they didn”t particularly like about their lovers, but under the influence of pleasure-enhancing dopamine and other monoamines, they quickly ignore those faults.

“Once you fall in love with somebody, once they trigger the brain system for falling in love, love is blind, no question about that,” Discovery News quoted Fisher, who recently wrote “Why Him? Why Her?”, which explores the neurological underpinning of romance, as saying.

And once people fall in love, they”re at the mercy of the brain”s reward system until the neurotransmitters oxytocin and vasopressin, which are linked to long-term bonding, produce their calming, stabilizing effect.

However, before the dopamine-fuelled process begins, people have much more power to decide who will receive their love.

Fisher explained: “Love is extremely blind once you”ve chosen your partner, but it”s not so blind while you”re making that choice.

“Basically, this concept of who you choose, it”s like a funnel. At any point, there are breaking points, moments where it”s just not going to work.”

But mate selection is fairly pragmatic.

People subconsciously select mates who come from common socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, geographies, education levels and upbringings.

Thus, when we”re searching for love, we can reject those who don”t share commonalities and mesh with what Fisher calls our “love maps,” or the temperaments and features we develop attractions to from childhood. That way, we don”t fall in love with just anyone.

Fisher said: “In other words, you and I can walk into a room and if everyone was a Pygmy and came up to our hips, we probably wouldn”t fall in love with them…because they”re too unfamiliar.”

Many a times the first kiss can ignite a blinding neurological love reaction, activating the dopamine reward system and setting off an addictive response to one”s beloved.

“The first kiss may not make a relationship, but it can clearly break a relationship…What happens is a lot of information from a lot of different modalities is brought to bear on the first kiss — the posture, the odour, the extent to which there”s an open mouth kiss, the extent to which there”s an exchange of saliva,” Gordon G. Gallup, an evolutionary psychologist at State University of New York at Albany, said.

But while humans are hard-wired to fall in love intensely, those neurochemical blinders eventually wear off as we settle into relationships.

According to Fisher”s research, as with drugs, people develop a tolerance for the neurotransmitters that produce the head-over-heels feelings and excitement of early love.

Fisher said: “By and large, we are an animal that pairs up to rear our young.” (ANI)

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Mum”s phone call as comforting as a hug during stressful times

May 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): A simple phone call from your mum or a warm hug has often brightened your gloomy moments, and now this has been scientifically proven by a new American research.

The findings of the study, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have appeared in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Biological anthropologist Leslie Seltzer tested a group of seven- to 12-year-old girls with an impromptu speech and series of math problems in front of a panel of strangers, sending their hearts racing and levels of cortisol – a hormone associated with stress – soaring.

Seth Pollak, psychology professor and director of UW-Madison”s Child Emotion Lab, said: “Facing a challenge like that, being evaluated, raises stress levels for a lot of people.”

Once stressed, one-third of the girls were comforted in person by their mothers – specifically with hugs, an arm around the shoulders and the like.

One-third were left watch an emotion-neutral 75-minute video. The rest were handed a telephone. It was mom on the line, and the effect was dramatic.

Seltzer said: “The children who got to interact with their mothers had virtually the same hormonal response, whether they interacted in person or over the phone.”

The girls” levels of oxytocin, often called the “love hormone” and strongly associated with emotional bonding, rose significantly and the stress-marking cortisol washed away.

Seltzer said: “It was understood that oxytocin release in the context of social bonding usually required physical contact.

“But it”s clear from these results that a mother”s voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if they”re not standing there.”

And the reprieve from stress or anxiety is a lasting one.

Pollak said: “It stays well beyond that stressful task.

“By the time the children go home, they”re still enjoying the benefits of this relief and their cortisol levels are still low.”

The findings square with a “tend and befriend” theory explaining how stress regulation may differ between males and females.

Confronted with a threat, males may be more likely to choose between fight and flight.

A female with offspring in tow or slowed by pregnancy, however, may have to make different choices.

Seltzer said: “You might not be able to run with a child or defend yourself without endangering both of you.”

Instead, Seltzer explained, it might make more sense for a female to create or use a social bond to deal with a stressor – either through touch or soothing vocal communication.

Seltzer said: “Apparently this hormone, oxytocin, reduces stress in females after both types of contact, and in doing so may strengthen bonds between individuals.”

Pollak said: “For years I”ve seen students leaving exams and the first thing they do is pull out their cell phone and make a call.

“I used to think, ”How could those over-attentive, helicopter parents encourage that?” But now? Maybe it”s a quick and dirty way to feel better. It”s not pop psychology or psychobabble.”

He added: “It”s hard to get cortisol up. It”s hard to get oxytocin up.

“That a simple telephone call could have this physiological effect on oxytocin is really exciting.” (ANI)

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Six steps to a happy sex life

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, Apr 30 (ANI): Feeling shy to make that first move in the bedroom? Well, here are six sex tips to get you all raring to go and sweep your man off his feet.

1. Bag Some Bedroom Magic with Before-Play

No surprise that women blame a lack of romance for a lack of sex! Time to nurture “before-play” between you—if you”ve had a row, or are stressed after work, let him know you need some cuddles and affection.

Don”t expect him to be a mind reader – men aren”t good at that. Ask him for a compliment, too. Men respond to straight talking so tell him that feeling appreciated and loved-up gets you in the mood for proper foreplay, reports The Sun.

Having before-play creates the right mood to get turned on. So include things like always having mood music ready to play, and candles to light your supper – even if it”s a takeaway!

2. Get Steamy!

Time to turn up the heat. Why not suggest having a candlelit bath or sexy shower together. Subtle candlelight flatters your figure! Take time lathering each other up with some sexy-scented shower gel. Have a couple warm towels ready to dry each other off before you tumble into bed.

When you indulge each other in steamy little pleasures it”ll give you loads of ideas for more sensual tricks to tempt each other into bed. You could offer to wash his hair and caress his scalp gently. Show him a light touch and then ask him to return the favour.

Once you”re out of the shower dare him to paint your fingernails. As he strokes each of your fingers gently it produces the love hormone oxytocin in your bodies.

3. Get Rude with Food!

It”s crucial to make sex as easy-as-can-be when you”re a busy/tired couple. So grab opportunities like getting a bit rude with food together. It”s super sexy to hand-feed each other little tidbits or to spoon something delicious like chocolate mousse into each other”s mouths.

Or why not have a rude-food feast in bed on a Saturday afternoon? Who says you have to eat at the table! This is the perfect setting for drizzling some sweet honey down your cleavage for him to lick off – forget about putting it on toast!

4. Letting Him Know What You Want

Believe me he wants to know what turns you on! If you”re feeling a bit shy then show him rather than tell him what to do. Take his hand and guide it gently around your pleasure-zones. Pause where it feels fab saying, “I love it when you touch me here.”

Also when he happens to touch you just right “big him up” – men love praise so heap it on him and he”ll do more of that feel-good foreplay.

If he”s a bit heavy-handed (true of so many men!) use this trick— take his finger and gently suck and lick it – then tell him that”s the sort of pressure you love.

And definitely use a warm and sensual voice to encourage him. Crikey, even just hearing your little sex-sighs will make him all ears! So use those little sighs and moans to communicate your pleasure.

5. How To Find Out What He Wants!

He might be a bit shy to tell you what he likes. So ask, ask and ask again! A good way to ask is to give him some options. Say something like, “do you prefer it when I stroke or squeeze you here, and more gently or firmly?” This”ll give him the confidence to be honest.

If he needs extra encouragement tell him you find it exciting being told what to do. Turn this into a playful sex-game where he”s the boss and you”re his sexy PA and he”s going to dictate to you what he wants done!

6. Your Private Pleasure Pack

Definitely make your sex-life simpler by keeping a little “pleasure pack” in your bedside table. Then when the mood strikes you”ll be ready for some frolics with your fella.

No annoying searching about for things like your favourite lubricant, condoms, sex toys, blind fold for a kinky sex game, sexy stockings and silky knickers, tissues, massage oils, etc. (ANI)

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Now, ‘cuddle hormone’ spray that makes men more caring, affectionate

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 30 (ANI): Women’s prayers have finally been answered: Scientists have developed a spray which can make men sensitive and affectionate using a ”cuddle hormone”.

Forty eight healthy males participated in the experiment. Half received an oxytocin nose spray at the start of the experiment, the other half a placebo. The researchers then showed their test subjects photos of emotionally charged situations in the form of a crying child, a girl hugging her cat, and a grieving man. The test subjects were then invited to express the depth of feeling they experienced for the persons shown.

In summary, Dr. René Hurlemann of Bonn University´s Clinic for Psychiatry was able to state that “significantly higher emotional empathy levels were recorded for the oxytocin group than for the placebo group”, despite the fact that the participants in the placebo group were perfectly able to provide rational interpretations of the facial expressions displayed. The administration of oxytocin simply had the effect of enhancing the ability to experience fellow-feeling. The males under test achieved levels which would normally only be expected in women. Under normal circumstances, the “weak” sex enjoys a clear advantage when it comes to the subject of “empathy”.

In a second experiment, the participants had to use their computers to complete a simple observation test. Correct answers produced an approving face on the screen, wrong ones a disapproving one. Alternatively, the feedback appeared as green (correct) or red (false) circles. “In general, learning was better when the feedback was shown in the form of faces”, states Dr. Keith Kendrick of the Cambridge Babraham Institute in England. “But, once again, the oxytocin group responded clearly better to the feedback in the form of facial expression than did the placebo group”.

In this connection, the so-called amygdaloid nucleus appears to play an important role. This cerebral stucture, known generally to doctors as the amygdala, is involved in the emotional evaluation of situations. Certain people suffer from an extremely rare hereditary disease which progressively affects the amygdala. “We were lucky to be able to include two femals patients in our study group who were suffering this defect of the amygdala”, says Hurlemann. “Both women reacted markedly worse to approving or disapproving faces in the observation test than did other women in a control group. Moreover, their emotional empathy was also affected”. Hence, the researchers suspect that the amygdala could bear some form of co-responsibility for the effect of the oxytin.

One of the effects of the hormone oxytocin, also called as cuddle hormone, is that it triggers labour pains. It also strengthens the emotional bond between a mother and her new-born child. Oxytocin is released on a large scale during an orgasm, too. This neuropeptide is also associated with feelings such as love and trust. Our study has revealed for the first time that emotional empathy is modulated by oxytocin, and that this applies similarly to learning processes with social multipliers, says Hurlemann. (ANI)

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It’s official: Men are obsessed with sex, hide their emotions, and cheat

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, Apr 1 (ANI): Expert Dr Louann Brizendine has dived inside a man’s mind and confirmed what most women long suspected: men are obsessed with sex, hide their emotions, and cheat.

According to Brizendine, testosterone causes the “man trance”, where blokes have to stare at boobs, reports The Daily Star.

She says: “The best advice I have for women is make peace with the male brain. Let men be men.”

Some of the other findings in the expert’s new book Male Brain: A Breakthrough Understanding Of How Men And Boys Think are:

1 Men really are sex-crazed

The brain’s part inked to sexual pursuit is two-and-a-half times larger in males than females.

2 They’re programmed to perv

The testosterone drives what Louann calls the “man trance” – a glazed-eye stare at breasts. She says: “I wish I could say that men can stop themselves from entering this trance. But the truth is, they can’t.”

3 Men want more partners

According to the book, men want an average of 14 sexual partners in their lifetime. Women want one or two.

Louann says: “It’s postcoital narcolepsy. During orgasm, males release a huge amount of oxytocin in their brains, and it is very sedating. It’s not that he doesn’t love you.”

4 Men lie more about sex

Biologically speaking, men are more comfortable lying to the opposite sex.

5 Foreplay round the clock

In case of women, foreplay is everything that happens in the 24 hours before intercourse. For men it’s what happens three minutes before entry

Louann says: “The male brain’s initial emotional reaction can be stronger than the female. But within 2.5 seconds his face changes to hide the emotion, or even reverse it.”

The expert doesn’t reckon her book justifies bad behaviour. She says: “This is not giving men an excuse to rape and pillage. But men do have a right to give voice to their biological predisposition and have it come in to the dialogue.” (ANI)

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Soothing massages the best way to deal with grief after loved one”s death

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 25 (ANI): A soothing massage can help provide consolation after the death of a loved one, says a new study.

The study has been published in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Eighteen people who had lost a relative to cancer took part in the study. Participants ranged from 34 to 78 years of age and included widows, widowers, daughters and sisters. Nine chose foot massage, eight chose hand massage and one asked for both. Only three had previous experience of soft tissue massage.

“Details about the massage study were included in an information pack provided by the palliative care team when people”s relatives died” says lead author Dr Berit S Cronfalk from the Stockholms Sjukhem Foundation, a Swedish palliative care provider.

Relatives were offered a 25-minute hand or foot massage once a week for eight weeks and could choose whether the sessions took place at home, work or at the hospital.

“Soft tissue massage is gentle, but firm,” explains Dr Cronfalk, who carried out the research with colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet. “This activates touch receptors which then release oxytocin, a hormone known for its positive effects on well-being and relaxation.

“In this study the hand or foot massage was done with slow strokes, light pressure and circling movements using oil lightly scented with citrus or hawthorn.

“The relatives were then encouraged to relax for a further 30 minutes.”

Baseline data was collected on the participants during a 60-minute interview before the programme started and a further 60-minute interview was conducted a week after the massage programme finished.

The interviews with the participants showed that they derived considerable benefits from the programme. (ANI)

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Early life nurturing influences social behaviors in adulthood

September 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 1 (ANI): A new study, conducted by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, has shown that early life nurturing impacts later life relationships.

The researchers used prairie voles as a model to understand the neurochemistry of social behavior.

Prairie voles are small, highly social, hamster-sized rodents that often form stable, life-long bonds between mates.

By influencing early social experience in prairie voles, researchers gained insight into what aspects of early social experience drive diversity in adult social behavior.

In the wild, there is striking diversity in how offspring are reared. Some pups are reared by single mothers, some by both parents and some in communal family groups.

For the study, Todd Ahern, a graduate student in the Emory University Neuroscience Program, and Larry Young, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Yerkes Research Center and Emory University School of Medicine, compared pups raised by single mothers (SM) to pups raised by both parents (BP) to determine the effects of these types of early social environments on adult social behavior.

“Our findings demonstrate that SM- and BP-reared animals experienced different levels of care during the neonatal period and that these differences significantly influenced bonding social behaviors in adulthood,” Ahern said.

Young added: “These results suggest naturalistic variation in social rearing conditions can introduce diversity into adult nurturing and attachment behaviors. SM-raised pups were slower to make life-long partnerships, and they showed less interest in nurturing pups in their communal families.

The researchers also found differences in the oxytocin system. Oxytocin is best known for its roles in maternal labor and suckling, but, more recently, it has been tied to prosocial behavior, such as bonding, trust and social awareness.

“Very simply, altering their early social experience influenced adult bonding,” Ahern said.

Further studies will look at the altered oxytocin levels in the brain to determine how these hormonal changes affect relationships.

The study is currently available online in a special edition of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Soon, a ‘love potion’ that may help couples communicate better

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 30 (ANI): Relationships are tricky. Most of the people think at some point that communicating positively with their partners when discussing stressful issues, like home finances, is an impossible task. But, worry not, for Swiss researchers are working on a “love potion” that will drive away all such conflicts.

Researchers have begun exploring the benefits of oxytocin for helping couples communicate better.

Oxytocin has been touted as beneficial for reducing anxiety, producing feelings of well-being, empathy, bonding, and sexual arousal.

In its May 1st issue, Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier, includes a paper by Swiss researchers that have investigated the effects of oxytocin, the “love hormone,” on human couple interactions.

They recruited adult couples who received oxytocin or placebo intranasally before engaging in a conflict discussion in the laboratory.

Oxytocin increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior and reduced salivary cortisol, i.e., their stress levels, compared to placebo.

“We are just beginning to understand the powerful effects of hormones and chemicals released by the body in the context of important social interactions,” commented John Krystal, M.D., the editor of Biological Psychiatry.

“As this knowledge grows, the question of how to best use our developing capacities to pharmacologically alter social processes will become an important question to explore,” he added.

Author Beate Ditzen, Ph.D., noted that this was the first study of its kind and important because it evaluated real-time natural couple behavior in the laboratory.

“[Oxytocin] might help us to pronounce the effects of a standard treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, by possibly making the benefits of social interaction more accessible to the individual. But it probably will not replace these standard treatments,” the expert added.

They clarify that this study does not show that oxytocin should currently be used as a treatment itself and the effects of repeated administration have not been evaluated in humans. (ANI)

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‘Love hormone’ makes strangers look attractive

April 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Apr 10 (ANI): The so-called ‘love hormone’ oxytocin, which is linked to a mother’s tender feelings for her child and long-term devotion between partners, can play a crucial role in picking Mr (or Ms) Right, say researchers.

A new study has found that men and women who smell a whiff of oxytocin rate strangers as more attractive.

When oxytocin courses through our blood, “we are more likely to see people we don’t know in a more positive light,” says Angeliki Theodoridou, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK, and the study’s lead researcher.

To reach the conclusion, scientists tested 96 men and women in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, reports New Scientist.

After participants got either a spritz of oxytocin or a placebo, they rated pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness and 30 for trustworthiness. Her team also tested for mood.

Following the procedure, researchers found that volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.

Researchers did not examine how oxytocin could affect social judgements, but Theodoridou speculates that the hormone dampens brain activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called the amygdala.

Although Theodoridou’s study shows that oxytocin acts similarly on men and women when rating strangers, sex differences could emerge in real-world situations, says Jennifer Bartz, a psychologist at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York.

The study has been published in the journal Hormones and Behavior. (ANI)

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Why men like wet kisses with more ‘tongue action’

February 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): When you share a kiss with your man, you reveal a lot more than just passion. US scientists have found that modern man uses smooch to pick up traces of estrogen in a woman’s saliva and thus gauge her fertility.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University says that such behaviour may explain why men like wet kisses with more “tongue action”.

While at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Fisher said that wet kisses could also be an unconscious attempt to transfer testosterone to the woman, which would stimulate her sexual interest.

“Men see kissing early in a relationship directly as a step to copulation,” she said.

According to Wendy Hill, a neuroscientist at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, kissing may also serve as a way to assess the quality of a mate.

Fisher said that research has shown that the majority of men and women rate their first kiss as either “the kiss of death” or the blossoming of a new relationship.

The expert recently developed a personality test that measures four universal temperaments by using statistics from 40,000 people on the Internet dating site Chemistry.com.

Each temperament type was linked to activity levels of the brain chemicals dopamine/norepinephrine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen/oxytocin.

Fisher found that a person’s temperament guides which type of mate they select-boosting her belief that love involves some very powerful brain chemistry.

“People sing for love; they dance for love; they write about love; live for, kill, and die for love,” Fisher told National Geographic News.

“It’s a wonderful addiction when [a relationship is] working well-but perfectly horrible when it’s working poorly,” she added. (ANI)

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Falling in love triggers chemical activity in the body

February 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 14 (ANI): When struck by cupid’s arrow our cheeks flush, palms sweat and hearts start racing, and scientists have now found the reason behind all these signs of love-chemical reactions in the body.

Loyola University Health System love guru Domeena Renshaw says that falling in love causes the body to release some chemicals that trigger specific physical reactions.

“Falling in love causes our body to release a flood of feel-good chemicals that trigger specific physical reactions. This internal elixir of love is responsible for making our cheeks flush, our palms sweat and our hearts race,” said Dr. Domeena Renshaw, author of Seven Weeks to Better Sex.

When two people fall in love, levels of substances, which include dopamine, adrenaline and norepinephrine, increase.

Dopamine creates feelings of euphoria while adrenaline and norepinephrine are responsible for the pitter patter of the heart, restlessness and overall preoccupation that go along with experiencing love.

MRI scans revealed that love lights up the pleasure centre of the brain.

When one falls in love, blood flow increases in this area, which is the same part of the brain responsible for drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

“Love lowers serotonin levels, which is common in people with obsessive compulsive disorders. This may explain why we concentrate on little other than our partner during the early stages of a relationship,” said Renshaw.

Renshaw has warned that the physical responses to love may work to our disadvantage.

“The phrase ‘love is blind’ is a valid notion, because we tend to idealize our partner and see only things that we want to see in the early stages of the relationship. Outsiders have a much more objective and rational perspective on the partnership than the two people involved do,” said Renshaw.

There are three phases of love, which include lust, attraction and attachment.

Lust is a hormone-driven phase where we experience desire.

During the attraction phase, blood flow to the pleasure centre of the brain happens, when we feel an overwhelming fixation with our partner.

This behaviour fades during the attachment phase, when the body develops a tolerance to the pleasure stimulants.

Endorphins and hormones vasopressin and oxytocin also flood the body at this point creating an overall sense of well-being and security that is conducive to a lasting relationship. (ANI)

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‘Dirty’ secret behind passionate kiss revealed

February 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Feb 8 (ANI): “Ummmms” and “aaahhhs” are not the only co-partners of kissing, for a passionate lip-lock unleashes a chain of chemical changes that really turn your head, claims a new study.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, Wendy Hill, professor of psychology at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania has taken the opportunity to shed light on that most basic of all human expressions of love – the smooch.

In her study, Hill has found that a meeting of lips can spark a complex chemical surge into the brain that makes a lover feel excited, happy or relaxed.

Also, it is being speculated that the hormone release may be triggered directly by an exchange of sexually stimulating pheromones in the saliva.

“This study shows kissing is much more complex and causes hormonal changes and things we never thought occurred,” The Times quoted her, as saying.

“We tend to think more about who we are kissing and how it feels, yet there are a lot of other things happening,” she added.

To reach the conclusion, the research team looked at the impact of kissing on levels of two hormones, oxytocin and cortisol, in 15 male-female couples before and after holding hands and before and after kissing.

Oxytocin is known to be involved in social bonding so the researchers predicted that its levels would rise, while cortisol, a stress hormone, would fall. The results showed cortisol levels fell in both sexes, although oxytocin levels rose in men but fell in women.

Detailed results will be published at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Chicago this week. (ANI)

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Pet love is similar to motherly love, say experts

January 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Jan 15 (ANI): After playing with their pooches, dog lovers experience the same surge of emotions as a mother with her infant, or the feelings linked with romantic love and friendship, say scientists.

Biologists Miho Nagasawa and Takefumi Kikusui, of Azuba University in Japan, reckon that it is all controlled by a single hormone-oxytocin.
Touted as the cuddle chemical” or the “love drug”, oxytocin has been found to dampen stress, combat depression, and breed trust in humans.

Past studies on voles, mice and rats have also pinpointed the role of this hormone in pair bonding and social memory.

Considering all that, the researchers conducted a study aimed at finding whether social contact between two different species could also lead to a surge in oxytocin levels.

“Miho and I are big dog lovers and feel something changed in our bodies when gazed [upon] by our dogs,” New Scientist magazine quoted Kikusui as saying.

For the study, they recruited 55 dog owners and their pets for a laboratory play session.

After providing a urine sample to measure oxytocin levels, the owners played with their dog for half an hour, and then went through another urine test.

On the other hand, some owners acted as control and sat in a room with their dog and were told to completely avoid the gaze of their pets.
Kikusui’s team videotaped the sessions and measured how long a dog spent eyeing its owner.

After the analysis, they split the pairs that were allowed to play into two groups: “long gaze”, who locked eyes for an average of 2.5 minutes during the play session, and “short gaze”, who made eye contact for fewer than 45 seconds, on average.

It was found that these groupings led to changes in owner’s oxytocin levels-pet owners who spent a long time making eye contact showed a 20 percent boost in oxytocin levels, while owners in the control group saw their oxytocin levels drop slightly.

The researchers saw that long-gaze owners tended to rate their relationship with their pet as more satisfying than short-gaze owners.

In fact, despite being asked to avoid eye contact during the control session, these owners experienced a mild boost in oxytocin.

Kikusui said that a flood of the cuddle chemical could explain why playing with dogs can lift moods and even improve symptoms of anxiety and depression.

They even suggested that oxytocin might have played a part in the domestication of dogs from wolves, about 15,000 years ago.

“Maybe during the evolutionary process, humans and dogs came to share the same social cues”, such as eye contact and hand gestures, said Kikusui.

He added: “This is why dogs can adapt to human society.” (ANI)

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Protein that control hormones critical to women’s health found in pituitary gland

January 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Jan 12 (ANI): Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have uncovered the location of a protein, called on Syt IV, which regulates hormones critical to women’s health- the pituitary gland.

Scientists found that the “rogue protein,” whose main location and function were unknown until now, is located in a specific area of the pituitary gland.

The puzzling protein acts as control knob and may adjust the release of the two hormones that come almost exclusively from the posterior pituitary: oxytocin, which controls many reproductive functions, and vasopressin, which controls fluid balance.

“The findings raise very interesting possibilities for women’s health, in which rising and falling hormone levels play a key role in many biological processes,” Nature magazine quoted senior author Meyer Jackson, a professor of physiology at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), as saying.

The research focused on Syt IV, which is a member of the synaptotagmin family of 17 proteins, present in both mice and humans.

Synaptotagmins are usually embedded in the membranes of small sacs, or vesicles, filled with neurotransmitters and hormones within nerve terminals.

At the time when an electrical impulse from one cell reaches a nerve terminal, Syt IV triggers the release of calcium.

Calcium, in its turn triggers the spilling out of the vesicle’s contents – neurotransmitters and hormones – so they can act on other cells.

“Most synaptotagmins are triggering molecules that drive a vesicle’s membrane into the membrane that surrounds a neighboring cell so that chemicals inside the vesicle can come out,” said Jackson.

However, Syt IV is different as it doesn’t bind to calcium and is found only sparsely in most parts of the brain.

But the researchers were shocked a few years ago after they discovered large amounts of it in the posterior pituitary, one of the three primary parts of the gland.
For the study, the researchers conducted high-powered biophysical measurements, and then compared the pituitaries from normal mice and mice in which Syt IV had been knocked out.

It was found that like other members of the synaptotagmin family, Syt IV resides on vesicles. But unlike the others, Syt IV doesn’t trigger neurotransmitter or hormone release.

“It does not simply translate a calcium signal into a command for hormone release. Unlike other synaptotagmins, Syt IV tunes the triggering command and determines whether the same electrical impulse will let a large or small amount of hormone out of the nerve terminal,” said Jackson

This ability to modulate hormone release may have important implications for pregnancy, birth, lactation and the menstrual cycle, all of which are linked to fluctuations in oxytocin levels.

“Any change in the body that entails releasing more or less of this hormone into the bloodstream could well be a result of the brain’s making more or less of this protein,” said Jackson.

He further added that more studies will be needed to better understand the protein.

The study appeared in the recent issue of Nature Neuroscience. (ANI)

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‘Love’ hormone helps us recognize familiar faces

January 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Jan 7 (ANI): It’s the hormone that makes people bond with their mates and helps breastfeeding mothers to fall in love with their babies. Now, scientists have found the first evidence to show that oxytocin plays an important role in helping us to remember the face of a stranger.

According to new research in the January 7 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, the “love” hormone or oxytocin helps people recognize familiar faces.

“This is the first paper showing that a single dose of oxytocin specifically improves recognition memory for social, but not for nonsocial, stimuli,” said Ernst Fehr, PhD, an economist at the University of Zurich who has studied oxytocin”s effect on trust and is unaffiliated with the new study.

“The results suggest an immediate, selective effect of the hormone: strengthening neuronal systems of social memory,” Fehr said.

In mice, oxytocin has been shown to be important in social recognition — remembering that another mouse is familiar. Unlike humans, who use visual cues, mice use smell to recognize and distinguish other mice.

In humans, oxytocin increases social behaviors like trust, but its role in social memory has been unclear.

“Recognizing a familiar face is a crucial feature of successful social interaction in humans,” said Peter Klaver, PhD, at the University of Zurich, the senior author of the new study, which was led by Ulrike Rimmele, PhD, at New York University.

“In this study, we investigated for the first time the systematic effect of oxytocin on social memory in humans,” Klaver said.

To reach the conclusion, Klaver and colleagues had study participants use a nasal spray containing either oxytocin or a placebo and then showed them images of faces and inanimate objects, including houses, sculptures, and landscapes.

Participants were given a surprise test when they returned the next day — they were shown some of the images they had seen the day before as well as some new ones and were asked to distinguish between images that were “new,” images that they specifically “remembered” being presented, and images they recognized (“knew”) as familiar but could not recall the presentation context.

Volunteers who used the oxytocin spray more accurately recognized the faces they had seen before than did those in the placebo group.

However, the two groups did not differ in recognizing the other, nonsocial images, suggesting that oxytocin specifically improved social memory and that different mechanisms exist for social and nonsocial memory.

Further analysis showed that oxytocin selectively improved the discrimination of new and familiar faces — participants with oxytocin were less likely to mistakenly characterize unfamiliar faces as familiar.

“Together, our data indicate that oxytocin in humans immediately strengthens the capability to correctly recognize and discriminate faces,” Klaver said. (ANI)

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