Tag: oxytocin

Hormone prevents whore moans

Ladies, if you’re trying to keep that man of yours from straying, then what you need is a little oxy. No, not Oxy Clean. No, not even oxycodone, although the resulting addiction pretty much guarantees his loyalty until he finds a new supplier.

A recent experiment had men inhale oxytocin and then introduced them to an attractive female stranger. Those in “stable, monogamous” relationships stayed an average 6 1/2 inches farther away from an attractive female stranger than their single peers. Not only that, but they also put more space between themselves and pictures of attractive women, too.

The scientists involved believe this is because oxytocin “makes [men] more empathetic, more attuned to social cues, and more inclined to adjust their behavior accordingly.” The Guys, however, think it just improves our eyesight, so we don’t have to get closer for a better look.

Love potion number bird

Scientists believe that the hormone oxytocin is responsible for creating intimate bonds between humans … but there’s much more to it than just being Simpson & Son’s tonic, as new studies are showing: finches beware! It’s been reported that researchers at Indiana University have experimented with finches’ levels of mesotocin, the finch version of oxytocin:

When the scientists at IU gave drugs that block mesotocin receptors to zebra finches – which are normally highly social creatures – the birds spent much less time with familiar individuals and more time with unfamiliar individuals. They also preferred to hang out in smaller groups. By contrast, zebra finches given extra mesotocin became more social and spent more time with familiar faces… Intriguingly, the same paper suggests that the distribution of oxytocin receptors in the brain might help to explain why some animals are more social than others. When the researchers compared three flocking finch species with two territorial, aggressive species, they found that the more social species had more mesotocin receptors in a part of the brain called the lateral septum. Blocking these receptors made the birds become less social.

So there you have it: oxytocin – the chemical that will make you act like a jerk, whether or not you like someone. Also, how can you not like testing oxytocin on animals? You know that they’d do the same thing to us if they had opposable thumbs.