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Oxytocin Regulates Sociosexual Behavior In Female Mice
Chipmunk100 writes In a research article in the journal Cell scientists report that there is a subset of neurons that are vital in social interest of female mice for males during estrus, the sexually receptive phase of their cycle. They say that these neurons are responsive to oxytocin. The level of oxytocin rise when we hug or kiss a loved one. The BBC has an article on the findings as well, and reports that
Without [oxytocin], female mice were no more attracted to a mate than to a block of Lego ... [The affected] neurons are situated in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain important for personality, learning and social behaviour.
Both when the hormone was withheld and when the cells were silenced, the females lost interest in mating during oestrous, which is when female mice are sexually active.
There are a lot of women out there who have very low or no sex drive and nothing seems to work, so I can't help but wonder if oxytocin would be useful in this area. Especially in a relationship the woman wouldn't be the only one reaping the rewards as the partner would likely also be quite happy with increased sexual activity around the house.
Disclaimer: I admit to being totally ignorant of what oxytocin really is or what it does and I have no idea if it would work the same in humans.
Personally, I'm kinda curious if this could lead to pest control solutions by reducing breeding.
The system in the brain and nervous system in fact are not tied or regulated by individual neuro-chemicals at all. The behavior and CNS processes might make use of some form of the oxytocin pathways, but by no means does that mean psycho-sexual behavior is regulated or controlled by those neuro-pathways or neuro-chemicals.
The reason is you can actually damage any part of an animals brain. You can knock out feelings, behaviors, nerve impulses, pain, emotions, thoughts, because it causes damage. When you disrupt the oxytocin pathways, it does not mean anything but the fact that the part deadened there was impacted heavily by that particular route in the brain.
A trick about the brain is many other behaviors and cognitive functions were also probably impacted but the researchers made absolutely no attempt to try to trace or reverse engineer that there. And in fact, without studying the brain as an entire universe of complex magnetic, electromagnetic, electro-chemical building and signaling processes, our researchers are not truly observing what is going on or how brain function is altered.
We have the same problem in the mental health drug field; We claim depression or psychosis is tied to this chemical or that, but we have no evidence of it and the drugs were found to be more or less general nerve inhibitors and nerve pathway disruptors for their method of action. We found that you can knock out any pathway by blocking connections and receptor site activation, or by otherwise dysregulating the neuro-chemical pathway, and achieve all sorts of tranquilizing effects that damage behavior and function out of a someone, resulting in new personality, new behavior, and extreme brain damage, because the person is only operating with part of their brain in tact.
I have a belief that the brain is far more complex than running one system all on a certain pathway and that these researchers haven't uncovered shit.
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I can't say I disagree, and I have a few opinions about that (some of which are fairly popular and well received, others not so much). Recently I've been trying to understand more about Feminism and it's been a fairly rough learning process which has probably cost me some friends, but I'm still pushing on with it. I see a lot of good there, but I'm also seeing a lot of bad, too.
I think the main problem is... there is no Pope of Feminism, so anyone can adopt that label and claim to represent it. This makes it hard to judge the intentions of that person because while most Feminists are genuinely committed to reaching true equality, some are not, and those happen to be the loudest, most confrontational, most aggressive ones who also tend to be the ones most vocally claiming to represent Feminism.
And some of those people are remarkably bigoted.
As a movement, in general Feminism makes some really excellent points, some of which have caused me to rethink a fair few important parts of my life and my own behaviour -- and that's good. Some self-reflection and introspection is an important part of living a healthy life and I really recommend it for everyone.
The problem is, it just seems like no matter how much we agree, whenever I speak to anyone who describes themselves as a "radical feminist" (the self-described part is important) it inevitably becomes a negative experience for me. This is surprising for me because of how much we agree on.
For example, I acknowledge there is a power imbalance between women and men, favouring men. It's hard for me because, as a man, I can't control how other people act, only myself. So I do my part and treat women equal to men. I have a female gym trainer, female IT head, female editors for my books and I have both female superiors and subordinates in almost all aspects of my life, as well as a large number of female friends. I treat them as I would men in their respective positions -- as cool people to hang out with, as people to follow my instructions or give me instructions respectively, or people who fix the errors in my books. Women are worthy of praise and criticism equally, and when I develop a negative opinion of someone, it's because they're incompetent, or rude, or any other attribute that's not related to their gender.
That just doesn't seem enough for the self-described "radical feminists" I meet. Whenever gender issues come up, we can usually have a great discussion -- up to the point I bring up anything that might be described as favouring men over women, even when women aren't the "cause" of it (such as the male suicide rate being twice that of women, and the suicide rate amongst trans* people twice that again). When this happens, even raising the point immediately puts them on the defensive. Suddenly I'm trying to deny that there's problems for women. Suddenly I'm the 'straight white cis guy with an opinion'; which seems to be the enemy. There's an expectation of bad faith there that means that anything I say that's not overtly stating that women are an oppressed slave-like underclass with no rights is seen as a misogynistic attack.
Ultimately, this kind of behaviour undermines the often good, legitimate points that feminism makes, making it easy to dismiss the whole movement. For feminists (male and female) who don't self-apply the "radical" term, I can almost always have a good, positive, helpful discussion with them about a broad range of issues and I usually come out feeling that there's a genuine move towards acknowledging that life is sometimes shitty for a lot of people irrespective of gender, colour or creed and that we should all work towards fixing the inequalities in our society together, as a species, and that makes me really happy.
Discussions with self-described radical feminists, though, usually end with me getting angry that my (smaller, less critical problems) are dismissed quite casually, and then as the anger fades, unable to shake the nagging feeling that the "quest for equality" is a sham and that instead
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In terms of mammals, is a fascinating neurotransmitter, because it's effect is different for males and females, get a room full of females and spray oxytocin in the air and all the females start being nicer to each other. Get a room full of males and do the same thing and the effect is different, all the males start being more competetive, here is the astonishing thing, it make the males more monogamous. When a female breast feeds the nerves in her nipples send signals to her limbic system, which starts producing oxytocin which alters her behaviour.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
Thats great advice. The problem is statistically men aren't working more, they are just getting paid more, and thats unfair.
I'll ignore everything else[1], but that statement has long been acknowledged as wrong . To be honest, if women were more valuable than men in the workplace (produced the same for less pay) the first all-female company to arise would sooner or later tower over the industry due to the lower employment costs. This does not happen - see here
[1] Discussing feelings is useless; there are no objective measures hence we come down to the argument of whose feelings matter more.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.