Hug the Monkey

Oxytocin Won't Make You Stupid

People often claim -- or worry -- that too much oxytocin would make them too trusting. Sometimes, they're talking about oxytocin therapies: would getting treated for social anxiety disorder with oxytocin, for example, make you vulnerable to scammers or mean people?

Sometimes, they posit releasing mass amounts into the air to quell mobs and turn citizens into sheep.

They may even be scared of the effects of too much of the good stuff leaking into their brains, causing them to trust bad boyfriends or manipulative girlfriends. (Of course, if sex is part of that relationship, it certainly can cause some heavy addiction.)

Well, it probably won't. See the latest in New Scientist.

Testosterone Makes Women Less Trusting

Another study shows how the mix of neurochemicals and sex hormones contribute to behavioral differences in men and women.

We've seen how oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, makes men more trusting.  Jack van Honk, a psychologist at Cape Town University, gave oral testosterone to women in their 20s and then asked them to rate photos of strangers' faces. It's interesting that he used a pill placed under the tongue, and rather surprising that a single oral dose would influence brain activity. But there you go.

At any rate, according to The Telegraph, 

Historically for women it was important to be co-operative and sociable in order to survive whereas for men it was more important to be able to fight.

Men therefore evolved with more testosterone than women in order to make them bigger, stronger and more aggressive. It also seems to have made them more wary and to constantly "watch their back" for danger. 

The testosterone dose may actually have increased the effects of vasopressin, a chemical that's close to oxytocin in structure and strongly influenced by testosterone. In animals, vasopressin increases mate guarding and vigilance.

Even a Phone Call Can Boost Oxytocin

This is a really neat study, reported by MSNBC.  Like a lot of the human oxytocin studies, it validates something that feels true already. In fact, this study, by Seth Pollak at the University of Wisconsin, validates a couple things:

First, talking to your mom on the phone can be just as powerful as being cuddled in person. Second, that technology-mediated interactions can feel just as "real" as face-to-face.

In the study, girls 7 to 12 years old had to solve math problems in front of judges, a stress-producing situation. Afterward, one group of girls got together with their moms for hugs and kisses. A second group called their mothers on the phone for verbal reassurance. The third group watched a heart-warming movie. 

The researchers measured the girls' blood levels of cortisol and oxytocin before the math and again after the cool-down. They found higher oxytocin and lower cortisol not only in girls who got cuddles but also in the girls who talked to their mothers on the phone.

According to MSNBC's Linda Carroll,

The study results may not apply to every mother-child pair. Pollak allows that when relationships are more complicated and there is tension involved, mom’s voice might not be so soothing.

“The reason we chose pre-pubertal children is that, for the most part, they still really do like to be comforted by their parents. As kids get older the relationship can get more complicated and strained.”

Pollak says he’d like to explore the effects of a mom’s voice in those complicated relationships in future research.

No kidding. I think my mother's voice probably would raise my cortisol levels.

Inhaling Oxytocin Can Make a Man More Like a Woman

At least, when it comes to empathy.

Two experiments by Dr. René Hurlemann of Bonn University´s Clinic for Psychiatry showed that inhaling oxytocin made men respond more emotionally. In the first experiment, men inhaled oxytocin or placebo and then looked at photos of things like a girl hugging a cat and a grieving man. Then, they were asked to rate their depth of feeling.

The men who had inhaled oxytocin reached the same levels of feeling that women usually report.

In a second experiment, men and women performed an observation test on the computer. They got feedback either in the form of a red or green circle, or an approving face. Learning was better among all test subjects when they got approval from a person. But those who had gotten an extra dose of oxytocin showed a stronger response. 

This is certainly not the first study showing that oxytocin increases empathy. In 2007, neuroscientists at Rostock University found the same effect.

If you want to test your empathy, try this online quiz: Reading the Mind in the Eyes.

Loneliness Takes a Toll on Health

I posted an article on Family Goes Strong, a new blog network I'm writing for, about two studies showing how a lack of social support -- scientist-speak for love, affection and friendship, all the oxytocin goodies -- correlates with higher blood pressure and more difficulty controlling diabetes.

The study by Louise Hawkley of University of Chicago compared people's self-reported experience of loneliness with the blood pressure, finding that less perceived support translated to rising blood pressure. Hawkley's work is in my book, and I've written about my visit to her lab. 

The second study, by Paul Ciechanowski of the University of Washington, correlated the ability to maintain general health in people with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes to social support. It makes sense that having people around you who care about you would make it easier to do the good stuff, like exercising and taking your medicine, while avoiding the bad stuff, like eating too many carbs.

What I didn't mention in the Family Goes Strong article was the link I see between loneliness, the lack of oxytocin-based interactions, and high blood pressure. Oxytocin is the anti-cortisol; it lowers blood pressure and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for relaxation, rest and healing.

Hawkley's other studies have linked loneliness to higher cortisol levels, which are responsible for higher blood pressure and can lead to heart disease. You could also look at this state as not enough oxytocin.

Even those of us who are good at connecting may find ourselves in periods where we're far away from friends, family or lover. It's important in times of loneliness to remember to do lots of the other things that can activate the oxytocin system, including massage, cuddling with pets, group activities that put us in synch (limbic resonance) with others, even shaking hands.

Counteracting Too Much Oxytocin

Many of us hope to increase our output of oxytocin, the brain chemical of love, trust and connectedness. But Jazzy has the opposite problem. She recently commented on one of my posts, and I'm  answering her question here.

Jazzy wrote,

I feel stoned after sex, even after only hugging and eye contact. The experience lasts the entire day and renders me unable to think, function, focus or communicate coherently, therefore it means that I am unable to function in my job and in my studies. It is only cured when I sleep it off and also once when a friend gave me a quarter or a dexamphetamine pill.

It has been a problem in all of my relationships as I can only show affection at a certain time of day which is in the evening before I go to sleep... when I have no more work or study to focus on!! This was the main problem that recently caused me to break up with my fiance. It is so significant that I was forced to choose between our relationship or my career.

However I don't experience this if I masturbate, it only seems to happen when I feel relaxed and share a heart connection with someone. Please help! I don't understand it, its completely absurd and it feels like a curse!!

Dear Jazzy,

That does sound like a huge interference with daily life.

It's interesting that this extreme stonedness does not happen with masturbation; it seems that you are correct in attributing this effect to sharing emotional intimacy during sex. It may be difficult, but consider yourself lucky that you can experience this!

At the same time, you do need to be able to have a satisfying sex life at the same time you enjoy a successful career.

If taking a small dose of amphetamine worked, you could try a shot of espresso. Caffeine triggers your adrenal glands, providing an antidote to all that oxytocin. If you already use caffeinated beverages, this would not work. If you have built up a tolerance to caffeine, it might be worth going off caffeine entirely, except when you really need this jolt -- such as after sex. Caffeine can be a powerful and effective drug when you're not habituated to it.

Another tactic might be to ask your doctor to prescribe buproprion. This is an antidepressant that works by increasing the levels of dopamine in your brain. Most antidepressants work by increasing the levels of serotonin, a calming brain chemical. But dopamine is the chemical of reward and reward-seeking. It tends to be energizing, so buproprion might counteract the extreme calming effects you experience from oxytocin.

If neither of those work, you might ask your doctor for a prescription for Provigil or Adderol; Provigil is a prescription drug used to counteract sleepiness, while Adderol is a prescription form of dextroamphetamine. In this case, you might risk becoming habituated and/or addicted to these drugs. But if you had the self-discipline to only take them when you needed them, they would probably do the trick.

My last piece of advice: Try finding an older boyfriend, one who has his own challenging career to think of. He might be perfectly happy to come home, eat dinner and fall into bed with you for the night.

Your RDA for Love?

If we evolved with emotions, they must have some purpose, right? If so, do we actually need to experience emotions, in the same way that we need to ingest vitamins?

That's the premise of an online discussion hosted by the World Mind Institute, led by Imam Saqib of the National Institute of Psychology at Quaid-i-Azam University in Pakistan, Irina Higgins of the Oxford University Foundation for Theoretical Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, and Melissa Mendoza of the University of La Verne.

The premise:

There may be research which suggests that for ideal health a person's glands should emit so much adrenaline, so much cortisol, and so much oxytocin on a daily basis. This could translate into a requirement that one would be well served to have several kinds of experiences every day which require these hormones. They might include the feel-good emotions that everyone craves; but they might also include less popular ones like aggression, fear, and anxiety.

This seems like kind of a no-brainer to me; I think these folks are forgetting that these same "emotion" hormones are also critical to all sorts of biological functions. For example, a surge of cortisol in the morning helps us transition from sleeping to waking. Oxytocin helps regulate the autonomic nervous system and is involved in satiation after eating.

Join the discussion here.

Massage Helps the Bereaved

Weekly massages for eight weeks after the loss of a loved one consoled the bereaved and helped them recover from their grief.

As reported in The Medical News, 18 people of varying ages who had lost a relative to cancer were offered massage. All but one reported that they received considerable benefits.

The Karolinska Institute is the Swedish research facility where Kerstin Uvnas Moberg did her pioneering research on oxytocin.

This study adds to the small bit of research validating the idea that massage causes the release of oxytocin in the recipient. However, we should note that the study does not seem to have actually measured levels of oxytocin in the participants' blood.  But the researchers have the very informed opinion that this is the case:

"Soft tissue massage is gentle, but firm" explains Dr [Berit S.] Cronfalk [from the Stockholms Sjukhem Foundation], 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.

Although you'll see it all over the internet, I've only seen one scientific study measuring the oxytocin levels of massage recipients. Still, it makes intuitive sense; and the emotion study participants felt is certainly that oxytocin feeling.

"All the people we spoke to used the word consolation" says Dr Cronfalk.

Touch Lubricates Sports -- and every other interaction

The New York Times reports on new research from Dacher Keltner of the University of California at Berkeley. Keltner, author of Born to Be Good, has done a lot of exciting work showing oxytocin's effects on positive social interactions that don't reach the level of bonding and love.

The latest study, by Michael W. Kraus, Cassy Huang, analyzed how much pro basketball players touched each other. They found that, mostly, the teams that touched each other the most were better teams. (As opposed to simply winning, which could account for more touching such as high-fives, the researchers used a scoring method that took into account other things in addition to scoring.)

Teams that made physical contact with each other more often tended to not only do better but to "get more out of" the game. (The article doesn't define this, and the study is still unpublished.)

According to Times writer Benedict Carey,

The touchiest player was Kevin Garnett, the Celtics’ star big man, followed by star forwards Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors and Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz. “Within 600 milliseconds of shooting a free throw, Garnett has reached out and touched four guys,” Dr. Keltner said.

Scientists and psychologists have long known that touch is important in families and between lovers or mates. This is another example of how that oxytocin boost that comes with warm and friendly touch can improve all kinds of human interactions.

Pipe Oxytocin Into the Senate Chamber?

A Washington Post reader has a great idea.