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Anne is reading …

(Credit: © David Cloud / Fotolia)Oxytocin, often called the ‘love hormone’ for building bonds between mother and baby, and couples after lovemaking, can also impact the behavior of baby monkeys.

Duke University neuroscientist Michael Platt showed that when administered oxytocin nasally, thesus macaques pay more attention to each other, even giving another monkey a squirt of fruit juice without getting one themselves.

Note that delayed oxytocin response is a factor. For the first 30 minutes of oxytocin exposure, the macaques would reward themselves over a buddy monkey. Then the emphasis on self shifted.

The researchers were also able to determine for the first time that nasally administered oxytocin actually travels into the brain. “Understanding how oxytocin works in the brain, where the site of action is, and the long-term consequences of treatment can’t be done in humans,” Platt said. “And rodent models are too distant behaviorally and neurologically to provide much insight.” via Science Daily

Also: Hormone Study Gives Scientists a Sense of How Animals Bond

Scientists have pinpointed the hormone vasopressin helps the brain distinguish differentiate between familiar and new scents.

Gender Personality Differences

(Credit: iStockphoto/David Marchal)Researcher Marco Del Giudice of the University of Turin in Italy, describes a new method for measuring and analyzing gender-based personality differences that is more accurate than previous methods. The study used personality measurements from more than 10,000 people to review 15 personality scales, including traits like warmth, sensitivity and perfectionism.

When looking at the ‘big picture’ of men’s and women’s personality profiles by taking multiple traits into account, very large differences between the sexes became apparent, even though differences look much smaller when each trait is considered individually. via Science Daily

Pelosi in Action

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Assistant Leader James Clyburn (S.C.) led seven Democrats into the chamber just after 10 a.m last Friday, in an attempt to blast GOP leaders for remaining on vacation amid an unemployment crisis.

The move accomplished another objective, as Republicans deemed the Democrats to be out of order, since the House wasn’t in session. Republicans protesting President Obama’s recess appointments have argued that they were illegal because Congress is technically in session. The latter was always known to be a ruse from Republicans, and now they are on record contradicting themselves. via The Hill

The Grating Santorum by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

More DFR

FBI Redefines Rape

The FBI has revised the definition of rape to include male victims and acts such as forcible anal or oral sex. States have long written their own rape definitions and prosecuted these crimes. But the statistics weren’t reported to the federal government.

The old definition of rape, one unchanged since 1929, defined the crime as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” Only a sexual assault in which a man forcibly penetrated a woman with his penis were counted in crime statistics.

4 Vitamins for Aging Brains

In a small study of 104 men and women with an average age of 87, scientists scanned brains to determine brain volume and mental functioning. After controlling for age, sex, blood pressure, BMI and other factors known to impact brain volume, the researchers found individuals with the highest cognitive test scores and larger brain volume had higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins B, C, D and E.

Higher levels of omega-3 were linked to better cognitive functioning and blood vessel performance, but not to higher brain vollume. As expected — and critically-important to America’s high fat diet — higher levels of trans fats, were significantly associated with impaired mental health and smaller brain volume. via NYTimes

Yoga Injuries

Danielle Levitt for The New York Times

Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, says in his New York Times magazine in-depth read that most people whould give up yoga altogether, because they are more likely to cause harm to themselves.

Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.”

Given that the whole point of yoga is to get rid of ego, the American approach to the discipline may be self-defeating. It’s true that yoga can lower your blood pressure, make chemicals that act as antidepressants, even improve your sex life. Few talk about yoga’s dark side.