themadcowtipper
Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
Take a whiff of this stuff, trust us
PHILADELPHIA A hormone known to make fools fall in love may also part fools from their money, according to a recent experiment from Switzerland.
There, a team of psychologists and economists set up a game simulating financial investment and found that a whiff of the hormone oxytocin previously linked to mating in other mammals induced human subjects to more readily trust others with money. The findings were published in todays issue of the journal Nature.
What youre seeing in this story is just the beginning just the tip of the iceberg of what oxytocin may be doing in humans, said Larry Young, a psychiatry professor at Emory University.
The findings suggest that unconscious, biological forces influence the way people make decisions. While some see the potential for nefarious uses of oxytocin in mass manipulation, the Swiss researchers say it may help those who have trouble with social connection.
Not to be confused with the powerful narcotic drug Oxycontin, oxytocin is a natural hormone released in the brains of many mammals during sex and childbirth, said Markus Heinrichs, one of the studys authors and a psychologist at the University of Zurich.
Oxytocin has been studied extensively in prairie voles, which are famously monogamous mammals. When they mate, their brains release oxytocin and a related hormone, vasopressin. This causes the voles to mate for life and for the males to stay around to protect the family.
A few years ago, scientists used genetic engineering to transform the relatively solitary and promiscuous mouse into a more affectionate and social creature.
We had a lot of data from animal research that showed oxytocin makes animals overcome avoidance behavior, Heinrichs said.
In people, oxytocin is released in the brain during orgasm. In women, its also made during labor and lactation. Sometimes called the cuddle hormone, it seems to induce bonding between mates and between parents and children. Scientists have long known how to synthesize oxytocin, and its prescribed to help induce labor. In the United States, oxytocin is used only in hospitals.
To investigate how oxytocin might influence other types of behavior, Heinrichs and his collaborators recruited 178 male subjects for a game to measure trust.
The subjects were given 12 points worth 0.4 Swiss francs each (about 50 cents). The subjects could invest any part of this money with an unknown human trustee, and that would automatically triple the amount. The trustee also had the option of keeping all the money or returning some of it to the investor. Subjects repeated this task with four different trustees.
Half the subjects got a placebo and half got oxytocin. Of those on oxytocin, 45 percent surrendered all their allotted 12 points to the trustee. Only 21 percent of the placebo group showed such trust.
Heinrichs said he was surprised by the results.
I thought human beings were more complicated and it wouldnt be so easy to influence such complex behavior as trust by one hormone, he said. He said the experiment might come out differently with female subjects, because women produce twice as much oxytocin.
Heinrichs is also experimenting with the use of oxytocin to treat autism and social phobia. In conjunction with talk therapy, he sees the possibility of progress that might otherwise be unattainable.
Could this also be abused to induce people to make gullible choices? University of Iowa neurologist Antonio Damasio raises the issue in a commentary accompanying the paper.
Some may worry about the prospect that political operators will generously spray the crowd with oxytocin at rallies of their candidates, he wrote.
Heinrichs said such a scenario is unlikely because its hard to get oxytocin across the blood/brain barrier. Sniffing works, he said, but a direct snort is necessary for even a subtle effect.
Theres always a chance someone could misuse or abuse it, he said, but it makes no sense to put oxytocin in the coffee or the air-conditioning vents.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/11792977.htm
PHILADELPHIA A hormone known to make fools fall in love may also part fools from their money, according to a recent experiment from Switzerland.
There, a team of psychologists and economists set up a game simulating financial investment and found that a whiff of the hormone oxytocin previously linked to mating in other mammals induced human subjects to more readily trust others with money. The findings were published in todays issue of the journal Nature.
What youre seeing in this story is just the beginning just the tip of the iceberg of what oxytocin may be doing in humans, said Larry Young, a psychiatry professor at Emory University.
The findings suggest that unconscious, biological forces influence the way people make decisions. While some see the potential for nefarious uses of oxytocin in mass manipulation, the Swiss researchers say it may help those who have trouble with social connection.
Not to be confused with the powerful narcotic drug Oxycontin, oxytocin is a natural hormone released in the brains of many mammals during sex and childbirth, said Markus Heinrichs, one of the studys authors and a psychologist at the University of Zurich.
Oxytocin has been studied extensively in prairie voles, which are famously monogamous mammals. When they mate, their brains release oxytocin and a related hormone, vasopressin. This causes the voles to mate for life and for the males to stay around to protect the family.
A few years ago, scientists used genetic engineering to transform the relatively solitary and promiscuous mouse into a more affectionate and social creature.
We had a lot of data from animal research that showed oxytocin makes animals overcome avoidance behavior, Heinrichs said.
In people, oxytocin is released in the brain during orgasm. In women, its also made during labor and lactation. Sometimes called the cuddle hormone, it seems to induce bonding between mates and between parents and children. Scientists have long known how to synthesize oxytocin, and its prescribed to help induce labor. In the United States, oxytocin is used only in hospitals.
To investigate how oxytocin might influence other types of behavior, Heinrichs and his collaborators recruited 178 male subjects for a game to measure trust.
The subjects were given 12 points worth 0.4 Swiss francs each (about 50 cents). The subjects could invest any part of this money with an unknown human trustee, and that would automatically triple the amount. The trustee also had the option of keeping all the money or returning some of it to the investor. Subjects repeated this task with four different trustees.
Half the subjects got a placebo and half got oxytocin. Of those on oxytocin, 45 percent surrendered all their allotted 12 points to the trustee. Only 21 percent of the placebo group showed such trust.
Heinrichs said he was surprised by the results.
I thought human beings were more complicated and it wouldnt be so easy to influence such complex behavior as trust by one hormone, he said. He said the experiment might come out differently with female subjects, because women produce twice as much oxytocin.
Heinrichs is also experimenting with the use of oxytocin to treat autism and social phobia. In conjunction with talk therapy, he sees the possibility of progress that might otherwise be unattainable.
Could this also be abused to induce people to make gullible choices? University of Iowa neurologist Antonio Damasio raises the issue in a commentary accompanying the paper.
Some may worry about the prospect that political operators will generously spray the crowd with oxytocin at rallies of their candidates, he wrote.
Heinrichs said such a scenario is unlikely because its hard to get oxytocin across the blood/brain barrier. Sniffing works, he said, but a direct snort is necessary for even a subtle effect.
Theres always a chance someone could misuse or abuse it, he said, but it makes no sense to put oxytocin in the coffee or the air-conditioning vents.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/11792977.htm