Psychology & Psychiatry

Oxytocin turns up the volume of your social environment

Before you shop for the "cuddle" hormone oxytocin to relieve stress and enhance your social life, read this: a new study from the University of California, Davis, suggests that sometimes, blocking the action of oxytocin in ...

Addiction

Protein links alcohol abuse and changes in brain's reward center

When given access to alcohol, over time mice develop a pattern similar to what we would call "problem drinking" in people, but the brain mechanisms that drive this shift have been unclear. Now a team of UC San Francisco researchers ...

Neuroscience

An immune regulator of addiction

Drug addiction is often thought of as neuron-centric, but in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, M.D./Ph.D. student Daniel Kashima and his mentor, Brad Grueter, Ph.D., show that the immune ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Low-dose diazepam can increase social competitiveness

Psychologists speak of anxiety in two forms: "state" anxiety, which refers to anxiety arising from a particular situation; and "trait" anxiety, which refers to anxiety as part of a person's overall personality. Studies have ...

Neuroscience

New study identifies gene that could play key role in depression

Globally, depression affects more than 300 million people annually. Nearly 800,000 die from suicide every year—it is the second-leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 to 29. Beyond that, depression destroys ...

Neuroscience

Researchers closer to cracking neural code of love

A team of neuroscientists from Emory University's Silvio O. Conte Center for Oxytocin and Social Cognition has discovered a key connection between areas of the adult female prairie vole's brain reward system that promotes ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Oxytocin reduces cravings for methamphetamine

Many people have suggested that addiction hijacks the body's natural drives in the service of compulsive drug use. A new study now suggests that hijacking another natural system in the brain may help overcome drug addiction. ...

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