SAN ANTONIO — Oxytocin, a hormone with a rosy reputation for getting people to love, trust and generally make nice with one another, can get down and dirty, according to evidence presented on Jan. 28 at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

This brain-altering substance apparently amplifies whatever social proclivities a person already possesses, whether positive or negative, says psychologist Jennifer Bartz of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

Previous work has shown that a nasal blast of the hormone encourages a usually trusting person to become more trusting (Science News Online: may 21, 2008), but now Bartz and her colleagues find that it also makes a highly suspicious person more uncooperative and hostile than ever.

“Oxytocin does not simply make everyone feel more secure, trusting and prosocial,” Bartz says.

These new results raise concerns about plans by some researchers to administer oxytocin to people with autism and other psychiatric conditions that include social difficulties, she adds.

Her team studied 14 people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and 13 volunteers with no psychiatric conditions. Symptoms of borderline personality disorder include severe insecurity about relationships, fears of abandonment and constant, needy reassurance-seeking from partners.

Borderline personality disorder usually occurs in women, but Bartz’s sample included four men. her group of healthy participants included seven men.

Members of each group played a computer game with an experimenter posing as a research volunteer. In each of three rounds, volunteers had to predict whether their partner would cooperate with them, so that each player could make $6, or if the partner would leave the game in order to claim $4 alone.

Volunteers who suspected the partner of bad intent could leave the game early and claim $4 for themselves.

Borderline personality players of both sexes left the game early far more often after receiving an oxytocin nasal spray than after whiffing a placebo spray. Inhaling the hormone prodded their already high levels of hostile suspicion and depleted minimal reserves of trust, Bartz suggests.

Psychiatrically healthy players became more cooperative in the money game after getting oxytocin, relative to their placebo responses.

Nasally inhaling oxytocin also magnifies men’s memories of their mothers as being either supportive or not, Bartz says. her team had 31 men fill out surveys on the quality of their relationships with their mothers up to age 16.

Those who described good maternal relationships remembered mom as substantially more caring and supportive after receiving oxytocin, compared with after inhaling a placebo spray. those whose early home life had been troubled remembered mom as much less caring and supportive after oxytocin, versus placebo.

Bartz’s team initially described oxytocin’s two-sided influence on men’s maternal memories in the Dec. 14 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

These findings underscore that “oxytocin is not a love hormone; its effects vary in different people,” remarks psychologist Greg Norman of Ohio State University in Columbus.

Norman and his colleagues have found that oxytocin stimulates the heart to beat more in sync with the breathing cycle in people with healthy social lives, but not in people who report constant loneliness.

Other researchers have recently reported that oxytocin stimulates greater trust of members of one’s own ethnic group and greater suspicion of other ethnicities.

Image: Foxtongue/Flickr.

See also:

• ‘Cuddle Chemical’ also Fuels Favoritism, Bigotry
• Testosterone makes People Suspicious of one Another
• The Difficulty of Loving Strangers
• Pharmaceutical Love Potion: Not yet …

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – among women undergoing fertility treatment, symptoms of anxiety and depression do not seem to reduce their chances of becoming pregnant, a new study suggests.

The findings, say researchers, should offer women some reassurance that such psychological symptoms do not have a strong effect on in vitro fertilization (IVF) success.

The multicenter study enrolled 783 Dutch women having their first fertility treatment. the women were asked to complete a questionnaire to assess anxiety and depression symptoms when they were put on the waiting list, 1 or 2 months before the procedure, and 1 day before the treatment.

A total of 421 women had complete information available for analysis. Overall, anxiety and depression symptoms were unrelated to the odds of becoming pregnant. These signs of psychological distress were also unrelated to the cancellation rates.

The findings do not minimize the importance of psychological well-being in women having IVF, the researchers report in the journal Human Reproduction. Studies show that many women suffer anxiety and depression after a failed IVF attempt, and research is still needed to see how to best identify and treat these women.

What’s more, "stress" should be considered a "wide concept," and this study did not look at all the forms stress can take — or the possible impact on IVF success, explained lead researcher Dr. Bea Lintsen of Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Still, Lintsen told Reuters Health, "the message can be reassuring.

The chance of pregnancy seems not be influenced by anxiety or depression."

Some past studies have linked psychological distress to a lower likelihood of IVF success, while others have found no such connection. this study, according to the researchers, appears to be the largest one to date to look at this relationship.

They point out, however, that further large studies are needed to "reveal more information about the interrelationship between emotions and fertility."

For now, Lintsen said, it’s possible that counseling women that there is a low likelihood that depression or anxiety symptoms will harm their IVF success may actually improve their mental health.

SOURCE: Human Reproduction, January 29, 2009.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

Click to view caption Murkoff

Heidi Murkoff, the best-selling American author of a series of books on pregnancy and parenting, visited Egypt recently at the invitation of a leading diapers company, in order to hold a seminar giving information and advice to mothers hoping to raise happy and healthy children. Herself the mother of two grown-up children, Murkoff is married and lives in southern California. her Cairo seminar was attended by a host of celebrities and media figures, as well as by many new mothers.

the idea for Murkoff’s first book came to her when she was herself pregnant for the first time. Murkoff found that existing titles did not answer all her questions, and so she decided to write her own. "I craved reassurance. I needed someone to tell me that all the seemingly random symptoms I had were normal," she explains. "When I wrote the book, I was on a mission to help other parents sleep at night."

However, that was not the only reason that caused this 23-year-old advertising copywriter — as she was then — to deliver a book proposal for an encyclopaedic guide to pregnancy two hours before she was due to go into labour with her first child. there was more to it than that, for Murkoff went on to write an entire bookshelf of titles dedicated to helping parents learn what to expect in pregnancy and childbirth.

Since that first book was published nearly 27 years ago, Murkoff’s bestselling What to Expect ( WTE) series of pregnancy and parenting books has helped guide more than 40 million families worldwide from conception through the toddler years and beyond. now in a fourth edition, Murkoff’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting has been translated into 40 languages worldwide and has been on The New York Times Best Seller List for more than 480 weeks. According to the US newspaper USA Today, this parenting book, known as a Bible to mothers across the world, is read by 93 per cent of all expecting mothers who read a pregnancy guide.

the books are meticulously compiled by Murkoff and a team of medical writers in order to ensure that they contain every up-to-date nugget of research imaginable. Murkoff’s commitment to parents and babies has also led her to co-found the What to Expect Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping low-income families plan for healthy pregnancies, safe deliveries, and healthy, happy babies.

Women all over the world, including Egyptian women, have felt blessed by Murkoff’s titles. Nevine, a mother of three children of six years, three years and six months, got her first What to Expect book as a gift when she was pregnant with her first daughter seven years ago. Since then, she has collected others and still refers to them to help her understand her children.

"I feel the books address every single question I have ever had about pregnancy, infancy and toddlerhood. It’s like having a doctor and child- development expert at your fingertips," she says.

According to Nevine, the books are written in a simple way, with lots of detail, options and ideas. they are also divided into clear chapters, and issues are addressed with humour. "the best part of the books is that they are reassuring and encouraging," she says. "For example, they advise mothers not to smoke while they are pregnant, but they also reassure smoking mothers that it is alright to stop during pregnancy."

Nevine refers to Murkoff’s WTE When You’re Expecting, WTE the First Year and WTE the Toddler Years. According to her, they emphasise that every pregnancy, parent, baby, and child is different, and that mothers should try not to compare their experiences to those of others. instead, they should try to relax and enjoy the phase they are in. "I always recommend the books and give them to my friends," Nevine adds. "Don’t bother with other books. Stick with these, and things will be ok."

However, according to Radwa Essam, the mother of infant boy Ibrahim, the books might give too much detail, or worry mothers, especially in a first pregnancy. "I prefer direct contact with either my doctor or my mother to get an answer," she says, though sometimes websites can also offer a quick answer.

For TV presenter Jasmine Taha, the WTE series was a lifesaver when she was pregnant 19 years ago. "it was my first year of marriage, first year of college and first pregnancy, and on top of all this I was abroad with no family to take care of me," she recalls. the WTE books answered most of her questions and helped her to embark on the journey of parenthood.

Jailan Gaafar, mother of a new- born baby, also admires the WTE series, first reading the books when she was pregnant and feeling that they would be best friends to her over her life to come.

"the book makes you feel you’re entering a new world, discussing every detail of it and comforting you," she says. For Gaafar, the best part of Murkoff’s work is that it makes you feel normal despite the changes to your body. She still recalls a sentence from the book: "take a good look at your waistline, because you are going to miss it for a long time to come."

Murkoff’s books remind her of another bestseller, John Gray’s book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. they are for every mother everywhere, she says.

Heidi Murkoff’s tips for happier, healthier babies:

To send your baby to dreamland, try:

- Rocking, swaying or patting him gently on the back;

– Sleeping in a cradle can offer your baby a cosier space to settle into;

– Swaddling your baby with a blanket will give your baby an extra dose of comfort and security;

– the right kind of background: soft music and dim lighting might do the trick.

To soothe a fussy baby, try:

- Swaddling because it creates a womb-like feeling;

– Non-nutritive sucking calms a baby’s nerves. Pacifiers can also do the trick;

– ‘Wearing’ your baby and walking around: while he or she enjoys the feeling of closeness and the rhythm of your walk, you can keep your hands free for other things.

To bottle feed a baby with love, try:

- Staying in close contact: physical connection and eye-to-eye contact are linked to brain development;

– taking it slow: let your baby take his or her time and enjoy the pleasure;

– Not to prop the baby up with a bottle. this can increase the risk of choking, ear infections or tooth decay.