Oxytocin (OT) is a hormone that plays an important role in social behavior—it has even been nicknamed “the love hormone” and “liquid trust.” Increased levels of OT have been associated with greater caring, generosity, and trust. But does OT increase people’s trust in just anybody or does it act more selectively? [click to continue…]

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Explore next month’s issue of The Psychologist also available for download as PDF : http://ht.ly/2tmey

Source: Issuu

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Before surgery, Gloria Lucio, 57, who has Alzheimer’s, gets a hug and kiss from her son, Valentin, 18, as her husband, Don Jones, looks on. She is part of a clinical trial at UCLA Medical Center in which holes were drilled in her skull and either an experimental drug or placebo was injected into her brain. Link to view photos

Source: LA Times

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Is multi-tasking a myth?

August 21, 2010

Multi-taskingPeople are increasingly overlapping their media habits – tapping out e-mails while watching TV, reading a paper while answering texts from friends. But, asks Hugh Wilson for the BBC Magazine, does media multi-tasking mean instead of doing a few things well, we are just doing more things badly? link to read more

Source: BBC Magazine
Image: Flickr

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oxytocinThe hormone oxytocin has come under intensive study in light of emerging evidence that its release contributes to the social bonding that occurs between lovers, friends, and colleagues. Oxytocin also plays an important role in birth and maternal behavior, but until now, research had never addressed the involvement of oxytocin in the transition to fatherhood.

A fascinating new paper by Gordon and colleagues reports the first longitudinal data on oxytocin levels during the initiation of parenting in humans. They evaluated 160 first-time parents (80 couples) twice after the birth of their first child, at 6 weeks and 6 months, by measuring each parents’ oxytocin levels and monitoring and coding their parenting behavior. [click to continue…]

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PillsMore mental disorders treated with drugs only compared with a decade ago, while “talk therapy” — either by itself or in combination with medication — is on the decline, a new study finds.
The implications of the trend, as well as its underlying causes, are not fully clear, according to researchers. But they say the findings indicate that outpatient mental health care in the U.S. is being redefined. link to read more

Source: Reuters

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