Conformity to the opinions of other people lasts for no more than 3 days.

When people are faced with opinions different from their own, they often revise their own opinions to match those held by other people. This is known as the social-conformity effect. Although the immediate impact of social influence on people's decision making is well established, it is unclear whether this reflects a transient capitulation to public opinion or a more enduring change in privately held views.

An oxytocin-induced facilitation of neural and emotional responses to social touch correlates inversely with autism traits.

Social communication through touch and mutual grooming can convey highly salient socio-emotional signals and has been shown to involve the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) in several species. Less is known about the modulatory influence of OXT on the neural and emotional responses to human interpersonal touch. The present randomized placebo (PLC)-controlled within-subject pharmaco-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was designed to test the hypothesis that a single intranasal dose of synthetic OXT (24 IU) would facilitate both neural and emotional responses to interpersonal touch in a context- (female vs male touch) and trait- (autistic trait load) specific manner.

Pheromones: the scent of a male.

There has been an enduring fascination with discovering biological odours which can evoke behavioral and physiological responses in mammals. New findings in goats have now identified a key molecule involved in the effect male odours have on female reproductive cycles.

Opposite effect of conflict context modulation on neural mechanisms of cognitive and affective control.

This study investigated the neural effect of conflict context modulation of cognitive and affective conflict processing by recording evoked-response potentials in cognitive and affective versions of a flanker task. By varying the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials in a block, we found different patterns of the context effect on evoked potentials during cognitive and affective conflict processing. For posterior N1 amplitude, frequent incongruent trials produced a larger effect only in the affective task.

Management of anaemia and blood transfusion in critical care - implementing national guidelines in ICU.

Anaemia in intensive care is common, with approximately 50% of patients receiving a red cell transfusion. Recognised complications from transfusion include 'transfusion associated lung injury', infection, and organ failure progression. Most cohort studies show a positive relationship between red cell transfusion and adverse outcomes.

Elevated cerebrospinal fluid and blood concentrations of oxytocin following its intranasal administration in humans.

There has been an unprecedented interest in the modulatory effects of intranasal oxytocin on human social cognition and behaviour, however as yet no study has actually demonstrated that this modality of administration increases concentrations of the peptide in the brain as well as blood in humans. Here using combined blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling in subjects receiving either 24 IU of oxytocin (n = 11) or placebo (n = 4) we have shown that oxytocin levels significantly increased in both plasma and CSF. However, whereas oxytocin plasma concentrations peaked at 15 min after intranasal administration and decreased after 75 min, CSF concentrations took up to 75 min to reach a significant level.

Oxytocin enhances brain reward system responses in men viewing the face of their female partner.

The biological mechanisms underlying long-term partner bonds in humans are unclear. The evolutionarily conserved neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) is associated with the formation of partner bonds in some species via interactions with brain dopamine reward systems. However, whether it plays a similar role in humans has as yet not been established.

Oxytocin enhances attractiveness of unfamiliar female faces independent of the dopamine reward system.

Evidence from animal studies suggests that the social attraction and bonding effects of the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) are mediated by its modulation of dopamine (DA) release in brain reward centers, but this has not yet been demonstrated in humans. DA release can be measured by positron emission tomography (PET) using the radioligand [11C]raclopride. Its binding to DA D2 receptors (D2R) is sensitive and reciprocally related to endogenous DA, especially in the striatum.

Brain-wide functional inter-hemispheric disconnection is a potential biomarker for schizophrenia and distinguishes it from depression.

Schizophrenia is associated with disconnectivity in the brain although it is still unclear whether changes within or between hemispheres are of greatest importance. In this paper, an analysis of 152 schizophrenia patients compared with 122 healthy controls was carried out. Comparisons were also made with 39 depression patients and 37 controls to examine whether brain-wide changes in inter- or intra-hemispheric functional connectivity are most associated with the disorder and can distinguish it from depression.

How cognitive plasticity resolves the brain's information processing dilemma.

A key unresolved question in cognitive science is whether the brain uses asynchronous or synchronous patterns of information transmission. Using an auditory learning task combined with electrophysiological recordings, we reveal for the first time that cognitive plasticity during learning transforms an asynchronous into a synchronous transmission pattern to achieve rapid, error-free performance. We also present a new model showing how the brain may resolve its information processing and transmission dilemma.

Lactation reduces stress-caused dopaminergic activity and enhances GABAergic activity in the rat medial prefrontal cortex.

We investigated the effect of restraint on the release of dopamine, GABA and glutamate in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of lactating compared with virgin Wistar female rats; besides the expression of D1, neuropeptide Y Y2, GABA receptors and corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). Results from microdialysis experiments showed that basal dopamine and GABA, but not glutamate, concentrations were higher in lactating rats. In virgin animals, immobilization caused significant increase in dopamine, whereas GABA was unchanged and glutamate reduced.

Estradiol prevents olfactory dysfunction induced by A-β 25-35 injection in hippocampus.

Background: Some neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson, present an olfactory impairment in early stages, and sometimes even before the clinical symptoms begin. In this study, we assess the role of CA1 hippocampus (structure highly affected in Alzheimer disease) subfield in the rats' olfactory behavior, and the neuroprotective effect of 17 beta estradiol (E2) against the oxidative stress produced by the injection of amyloid beta 25-35.

Results: 162 Wistar rats were ovariectomized and two weeks after injected with 2 μl of amyloid beta 25-35 (A-β25-35) in CA1 subfield.

What Can Psychiatric Disorders Tell Us about Neural Processing of the Self?

Many psychiatric disorders are associated with abnormal self-processing. While these disorders also have a wide-range of complex, and often heterogeneous sets of symptoms involving different cognitive, emotional, and motor domains, an impaired sense of self can contribute to many of these. Research investigating self-processing in healthy subjects has facilitated identification of changes in specific neural circuits which may cause altered self-processing in psychiatric disorders.

Structural and functional connectivity changes in the brain associated with shyness but not with social anxiety.

Shyness and social anxiety are correlated to some extent and both are associated with hyper-responsivity to social stimuli in the frontal cortex and limbic system. However to date no studies have investigated whether common structural and functional connectivity differences in the brain may contribute to these traits. We addressed this issue in a cohort of 61 healthy adult subjects.

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors contribute to learning-induced metaplasticity in the hippocampus.

Hippocampal learning is thought to induce metaplasticity, which can facilitate subsequent learning. Administered at single low doses, the N-methyl-d-aspartate-type glutamate receptor antagonist memantine predominantly blocks α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7 nAChRs). Placebo-controlled administration of a single low dose of memantine in a pharmaco-fMRI experiment may thus help characterize the role of α7 nAChRs in hippocampal metaplasticity.

The long rather than the short allele of 5-HTTLPR predisposes Han Chinese to anxiety and reduced connectivity between prefrontal cortex and amygdala.

The short allele of the serotonin-transporter gene is associated with higher risk for anxiety and depression in Caucasians, but this association is still unclear in Asians. Here, we addressed this issue using behavioral and multi-modal MRI approaches in a large group of healthy Han Chinese participants (n = 233). In contrast to findings in Caucasians, we found that long-allele (L) carriers had higher anxiety scores.

Group differences in preferences for a novel nightstand.

Objective: Multiple user groups (patients and employees at a rehabilitation facility, community-dwelling seniors, and university students) participated in a study that examined their preferences for the features and functions of three novel nightstand prototypes.

Background: It is valuable to get input from different user groups in order to improve furniture usefulness and usability, especially furniture prevalent in clinical settings where users of all age groups are found.

Methods: Feedback was obtained from different user groups in both clinical (rehabilitation facility) and nonclinical (university) settings.

Oxytocin modulates social distance between males and females.

In humans, interpersonal romantic attraction and the subsequent development of monogamous pair-bonds is substantially predicted by influential impressions formed during first encounters. The prosocial neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) has been identified as a key facilitator of both interpersonal attraction and the formation of parental attachment. However, whether OXT contributes to the maintenance of monogamous bonds after they have been formed is unclear.

Oxytocin facilitates protective responses to aversive social stimuli in males.

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) can enhance the impact of positive social cues but may reduce that of negative ones by inhibiting amygdala activation, although it is unclear whether the latter causes blunted emotional and mnemonic responses. In two independent double-blind placebo-controlled experiments, each involving over 70 healthy male subjects, we investigated whether OXT affects modulation of startle reactivity by aversive social stimuli as well as subsequent memory for them. Intranasal OXT potentiated acoustic startle responses to negative stimuli, without affecting behavioral valence or arousal judgments, and biased subsequent memory toward negative rather than neutral items.

Both lexical and non-lexical characters are processed during saccadic eye movements.

On average our eyes make 3-5 saccadic movements per second when we read, although their neural mechanism is still unclear. It is generally thought that saccades help redirect the retinal fovea to specific characters and words but that actual discrimination of information only occurs during periods of fixation. Indeed, it has been proposed that there is active and selective suppression of information processing during saccades to avoid experience of blurring due to the high-speed movement.

Key functional circuitry altered in schizophrenia involves parietal regions associated with sense of self.

There is still no clear consensus as to which of the many functional and structural changes in the brain in schizophrenia are of most importance, although the main focus to date has been on those in the frontal and cingulate cortices. In the present study, we have used a novel holistic approach to identify brain-wide functional connectivity changes in medicated schizophrenia patients, and functional connectivity changes were analyzed using resting-state fMRI data from 69 medicated schizophrenia patients and 62 healthy controls. As far as we are aware, this is the largest population reported in the literature for a resting-state study.

A computational study on altered theta-gamma coupling during learning and phase coding.

There is considerable interest in the role of coupling between theta and gamma oscillations in the brain in the context of learning and memory. Here we have used a neural network model which is capable of producing coupling of theta phase to gamma amplitude firstly to explore its ability to reproduce reported learning changes and secondly to memory-span and phase coding effects. The spiking neural network incorporates two kinetically different GABA(A) receptor-mediated currents to generate both theta and gamma rhythms and we have found that by selective alteration of both NMDA receptors and GABA(A,slow) receptors it can reproduce learning-related changes in the strength of coupling between theta and gamma either with or without coincident changes in theta amplitude.

Biopsychosocial determinants of treatment outcome for mood and anxiety disorders up to 8 months postpartum.

Little is known about the biopsychosocial determinants that predict postpartum treatment outcome for mood and anxiety disorders. Postpartum mood and anxiety symptoms and psychosocial/biological variables were recorded for 8 months of 22 women treated with antidepressants during pregnancy. Depression scores decreased by 58%, whereas anxiety scores decreased by 35%.

Integration of consonant and pitch processing as revealed by the absence of additivity in mismatch negativity.

Consonants, unlike vowels, are thought to be speech specific and therefore no interactions would be expected between consonants and pitch, a basic element for musical tones. The present study used an electrophysiological approach to investigate whether, contrary to this view, there is integrative processing of consonants and pitch by measuring additivity of changes in the mismatch negativity (MMN) of evoked potentials. The MMN is elicited by discriminable variations occurring in a sequence of repetitive, homogeneous sounds.