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POPSReal Aphrodisiacs to Boost Desire The afterglow: Scientists may be figuring out how brain chemistry influences emotion, but don't expect to see a real love potion anytime soon. That's because you and I are more than just chemicals. We're thinking beings with a host of experiences, values, ideas, and memories—all of which share the stage with the chemical systems for lust, attachment, and romance.
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POPS'Get off Facebook and get a life'
He said: "Social networking is the internet's biggest growth area, particular among young children. "A quarter of British children have a laptop or computer in their room by the age of five and they have their own social networking sites, like the BBC's myCBBC. It's causing huge changes." Dr Sigman said 209 "socially regulated" genes have been identified, including ones involved in the immune system, cell proliferation and responses to stress. Electronic media is also undermining the ability of children and young people to learn vital social skills and read body language, he said. Dr Sigman continued: "One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction in the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being. "In less than two decades, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. "Parents spend less time with their children than they did only a decade ago
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POPSOxytocin Improves Human Ability To Recognize Faces Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. ---------------------------- The research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Federal Institute of Sports, and the University of Zurich. The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 38,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. Source: Todd Bentsen Society for Neuroscience
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POPSLove Vaccine "mouselike creatures are among the small minority of mammals — less than 5 percent — who share humans’ propensity for monogamy. When a female prairie vole’s brain is artificially infused with oxytocin, a hormone that produces some of the same neural rewards as nicotine and cocaine, she’ll quickly become attached to the nearest male. A related hormone, vasopressin, creates urges for bonding and nesting when it is injected in male voles (or naturally activated by sex). After Dr. Young found that male voles with a genetically limited vasopressin response were less likely to find mates, Swedish researchers reported that men with a similar genetic tendency were less likely to get married" :) so after all it is all in the chemistry...
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POPSPharmaceutical Love Potion: Not Yet... In humans, brain regions associated with dopamine are activated in mothers looking at pictures of their children, and lovers at each other — and, perhaps instructively, in drug addicts taking heroin or cocaine. To Young, all this means that science may soon treat lovelessness as easily as it now treats depression and anxiety. "Drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away," he writes. Not so fast, said Fisher. The alterations required to manipulate love, she said, are likely so complex and far-reaching as to be unattainable in a pill. "There are cognitive processes and limbic reactions associated with basic emotions," said Fisher. "And you can change brain chemistry, but you're still not going to change memories and experiences in a human being."
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POPSDoes Sex Addiction Have Any Basis in Science?
Some how those who fall victim to an addiction are unable to resist impulses to engage in a specific behaviour..No matter how inconvenient this may become beyond a certain limit.Are they genetic?...But beyond these clear-cut cases, defining addiction from a neurological standpoint becomes more and more difficult. Sure enough, both shooting cocaine and having an orgasm stimulate your mesolimbic system by a sudden release of dopamine, but so does scoring a goal in a soccer game, going on a rollercoaster ride, skiing, diving, dancing, or watching a movie. In fact, it may be argued that every single action that we can describe as pleasurable involves the activation of this system. But if we can potentially become addicted to anything (or anything pleasurable, at least), where exactly do we draw the line between healthy pleasure-seeking and addiction? Moreover, it goes without saying that most people regularly engage in some form of sexual activity (or in drinking or TV-watching, for that m
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POPSmidsummer night's dream - a drug that enhances love and trust? some of the factors which makes us trust the human in front of us are known to us, but here described one that was unknown until recently. the discovery that can be a drug/hormone that acts in an unaware manner to make one trust, raise the question - are there other unknown factors that influence our trust? our love?
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POPSThe Power of a Handshake: How Touch Sustains Personal and Business Relationships Recent research from Zak's neuroeconomics lab has shown that the human brain uses oxytocin to unconsciously assess if a person is trustworthy using our memory of past encounters and all of our senses, including touch. If the stranger is a good match for other trustworthy people, the brain releases oxytocin, telling us it is safe to trust. Interesting read.
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