New drug spray 'makes men as soppy as girls'

[FarCenter]

Dr René Hurlemann of Bonn Uni's Klinik für Psychiatrie, working with colleagues in Germany, Arizona and Blighty, has just announced successful tests of the new girlification spray - whose active ingredient is the hormone oxytocin.

Hurlemann and his colleagues say they have proved the effectiveness of their devilish drug by means of tests in which ordinary, manly German men used the spray and were then shown photographs featuring among other things a sweet "girl hugging her cat".

Control-group German men who had been given a placebo rather than the soppiness compound reacted normally, either unemotionally or with mild discomfort. But the hapless subjects who had been given the drug showed “significantly higher emotional empathy levels", according to Hurlemann.

"The males under test achieved levels which would normally only be expected in women," says a statement from Bonn University, indicating that they had cooed or even blubbed at the sight of the affecting images.

<SNIP>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/30/soppiness_spray/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Why?

[maxsolomon]

4. compassionate men are less likely to kill for corporate profits?

:shrug:

[cliffordu]

2. Apparently my wife has been using this on me for years.

I blubber at cute kittens, puppies and 'especially panda cubs.

[Captain Hilts]

7. Good for you! There ain't nothin' 'sissy' about it. Experience life at its fullest.

Not half-assed.

[RKP5637]

13. +1000, n/t

[Skittles]

8. IT'S A QUANDARY

WHO GETS IT - CLIFFORDU OR MRS. CLIFFORDU :o

[cliffordu]

22. She will tell you she does.

And I will agree. Every time.

:rofl:

Yo, Skittles, Howareya??

[Skittles]

27. HANGING IN THERE CLIFFORDU

YES INDEED :hi:

[madokie]

10. I think it may have something to do with our Vietnam experiences

as I'm the same way. Hell I can not tell you either real good news or real bad news I choke up. Regular ol news I can handle just fine though :-) I used to not be that way

[Captain Hilts]

15. I have found that military men do not have the same hang ups about expressing

emotion - love, etc. - that civilian men do.

The veterans I hang out with - navy vets - hug, say "I love you" etc. all the time and don't think twice about it. And they shouldn't.

Again, it's about feeling. If you don't feel it you're not living it and can't appreciate it. It's about living life to its fullest.

[cliffordu]

20. Yep - Life is too short t to NOT tell people you love them, give them a hug.

[madokie]

21. I have to agree

I'm living with a real scare right now and it's helping me to see the world in a somewhat different light. I'm having the shit scared out of me about my health. Making me realize we only get one turn here so live it to it's fullest.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Did they also find

that if the men who had the placebo spelt women backwards it spelt kitchen ?

[SpiralHawk]

5. When women take testoserone supplements

it reduces their capacity to produce oxytocin naturally...

The whole hormonal balance thing is fraught with complexities...

[Captain Hilts]

6. Sexism is still okay with too many folks. nt

[Book Lover]

16. +1 (nm)

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. I thought they already invented CK1 nt

[zazen]

11. wonder if it will help with autism spectrum disorders

although autism/aspergers is more a problem of a lack of _understanding_, of forming a theory of mind about others, than of empathy

I swear there's a phenom as having too much of this stuff circulating in your body. Too much empathy can be crippling. When I was pregnant I saw a squirrel get hit by a car, and I wouldn't get in a car for weeks for fear of hurting an animal or seeing an animal get hurt. (Then a seagull smashed into my windshield about two months post-partum--nice). I know it set me up to fiercely bond with my child, but to constantly take on everyone else's suffering on top of your own is debilitating to actually doing anything about their suffering.

[RKP5637]

12. The anti-war spray? Spray this, have some pot, and maybe it is the

solution to the endless wars and violence mankind seems to love... Oops, that won't work, no greedy profit and jobs for the MIC.

[EOTE]

14. "It is also released in copious amounts, apparently, during an orgasm."

So would this account for the 4 to 5 post-coitus minutes where I'm not interested in sex and feel like cuddling?

[mitchum]

18. That is a result of genetic coding intended to make you fall asleep and not leave

Honest

[Deep13]

17. I demand to see the cat photo! nt

[mitchum]

19. Will it make me misplace my keys?

[Ian David]

23. It's the weapon designed by Deep Thought! n/t

[cap]

24. why do we denigrate girls so much these days...

too many times we are using phrases like crying like a girl, screaming like a girl, etc.
Why

[Rex]

25. This study sounds like 100% bullshit.

Why would ANYONE show discomfort at being shown a picture of a girl hugging her cat? Did they test this new drug on themselves?

[FarCenter]

26. Judge for yourself, the whole paper is available

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/reprint/30/14/4999

Oxytocin Enhances Amygdala-Dependent, Socially Reinforced Learning and Emotional Empathy in Humans

Rene´ Hurlemann,1* Alexandra Patin,1* Oezguer A. Onur,1 Michael X. Cohen,2 Tobias Baumgartner,1 Sarah Metzler,1
Isabel Dziobek,3 Juergen Gallinat,4 Michael Wagner,1 Wolfgang Maier,1 and Keith M. Kendrick5

1Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany, 2Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, 3Department of Educational Science and Psychology, University of Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany, 4Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charite´ University Medicine

Abstract

Oxytocin (OT) is becoming increasingly established as a prosocial neuropeptide in humans with therapeutic potential in treatment of social, cognitive, andmooddisorders. However, the potential ofOTas a general facilitator of human learning and empathy is unclear. The current double-blind experiments on healthy adult male volunteers investigated first whether treatment with intranasal OT enhanced learning performance on a feedback-guided item– category association task where either social (smiling and angry faces) or nonsocial (green and red lights) reinforcers were used, and second whether it increased either cognitive or emotional empathy measured by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. Further experiments investigated whether OT-sensitive behavioral components required a normal functional amygdala. Results in control groups showed that learning performance was improved when social rather than nonsocial reinforcement was used. Intranasal OT potentiated this social reinforcement advantage and greatly increased emotional, but not cognitive, empathy in response to both positive and negative valence stimuli. Interestingly, after OT treatment, emotional empathy responses in men were raised to levels similar to those found in untreated women. Two patients with selective bilateral damage to the amygdala (monozygotic twins with congenital Urbach–Wiethe disease) were impaired on both OT-sensitive aspects of these learning and empathy tasks, but performed normally on nonsocially reinforced learning and cognitive empathy. Overall these findings provide the first demonstration that OT can facilitate amygdala-dependent, socially reinforced learning and emotional empathy in men.