Oxytocin

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CuriousKitten
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07 Jun 2012, 3:02 am

KemoreJ wrote:

(But there are sooo many other ways of increasing Oxytocin. If anyone is interested, I would love to share my research).

*raises hand* I'm more than interested. Please do share!

Callista
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07 Jun 2012, 3:09 am

Oxytocin is the hormone that leads you to become attached to other people--to your spouse, to your kids. It's involved in trust; if you have a lot of oxytocin in your system you are more likely to trust other people, whether they're friends or total strangers. (Naive Aspies beware: This makes you a much easier target for bullies.) It doesn't make your social skills increase, but it may decrease social anxiety, causing you to trust other people more--though at the cost of being vulnerable to those who really are out to get you.

It's worth a try for people who have social anxiety; but I'd be worried about most autistics taking it. That added trust makes a bad problem worse, especially for autistics who are either unable to communicate or unable to seek help when they are in an abusive situation, or unable to identify one when they are in it. Honestly, the oxytocin-for-autism thing scares me. It might increase eye contact and decrease social anxiety; and in the long term, the added practice may give you better social skills--but at what cost?

I would rather deal with social anxiety through cognitive-behavioral therapy and learn social skills through normal practice. Eye contact is superfluous and can be discarded and faked when necessary.

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Apple_in_my_Eye
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07 Jun 2012, 3:31 am

Hmm, I don't buy the premise. It seems yet another idea that begins with "lacks empathy," or something close.

If a person feels bonded to anyone, even if only their pets, then I'd think that their oxytocin system works fine.

And also, I found this article pretty interesing:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/ind ... tocin.html

Quote:

The Dark Side of Oxytocin

For a hormone, oxytocin is pretty famous. It’s the “cuddle chemical”—the hormone that helps mothers bond with their babies. Salespeople can buy oxytocin spray on the internet, to make their clients trust them. It’s known for promoting positive feelings, but more recent research has found that oxytocin can promote negative emotions, too. The authors of a new review article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, takes a look at what oxytocin is really doing.

Oxytocin’s positive effects are well known. Experiments have found that, in games in which you can choose to cooperate or not, people who are given more oxytocin trust their fellow players more. Clinical trials have found that oxytocin can help people with autism, who have trouble in social situations. Studies have also found that oxytocin can increase altruism, generosity, and other behaviors that are good for social life.

But the warm fuzzy side of oxytocin isn’t the whole story. “Quite a number of studies have shown it’s actually not that simple,” says Andrew Kemp of the University of Sydney, who cowrote the paper with his colleague Adam Guastella. Recent studies have found that people who were given oxytocin, then played a game of chance with a fake opponent, had more envy and gloating. These are also both social emotions, but they’re negative. “It kind of rocked the research world a little bit,” Kemp says. That led some researchers to think that oxytocin promotes social emotions in general, both negative and positive.

But Kemp and Guastella think oxytocin’s role is slightly different. Rather than supporting all social emotions, they think it plays a role in promoting what psychologists call approach-related emotions. These are emotions that have to do with wanting something, as opposed to shrinking away. “If you look at the Oxford English Dictionary for envy, it says that the definition of envy is to wish oneself on a level with another, in happiness or with the possession of something desirable,” Kemp says. “It’s an approach-related emotion: I want what you have.” Gloating is also about approach, he says; people who are gloating are happy—a positive, approach-related emotion—about having more than their opponent and about that person’s misfortune.

If Kemp and Guastella are right, that could mean that oxytocin could also increase anger and other negative approach-related emotions. That could have important implications for people who are studying how to use oxytocin as a psychiatric treatment. “If you were to take a convicted criminal with a tendency towards aggression and give him oxytocin to make him more social, and if that were to enhance anger as opposed to suppressing anger, then that has very substantial implications,” Kemp says.

Further research will show more about what emotions are promoted by oxytocin, Kemp says. “This research is really important because we don’t want to go ahead and attempt to treat a range and variety of psychiatric disorders with oxytocin without fully understanding the impact this may have on emotion and mood.”

Raziel
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07 Jun 2012, 4:22 am

Well I see this positive.
Too much envy is not good, but it is natural to compare with others. That's what make neuroticals to compete.
Of course too much is nagative, but a bit also has positive effects.
I care too less about my social status in society and so on to compete with anyone or even care about it what others think about me, so that I'm allways in the same misserable situation.

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NeueZiel
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07 Jun 2012, 4:43 am

Did anyone else see this thread, see "oxycontin" and do a double take for awhile until you realized people were talking about something totally different? Would be pretty funny if we could start taking THAT for our ASD.

ewes
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07 Jun 2012, 5:07 am

Oxytocin helps alot.

I've been using it for about four weeks now and I'm noticing some interesting results. I get more satisfaction out of the normal daily chores and communicating with other people. Something I didn't have in the past except when I was talking about one of my obsessions. It feels good and I don't need to be as precise about everything as I used to be. You might say I stopped or care less about a lot of things that would usually occupy my mind. Making it easier to listen to other people and to try and understand their point of view. In the past I wasn't able to do this. The only opinion that mattered was my own because I only trusted myself which made me feel alone but at the sametime overall 'justified' to a certain degree. This was what kept me going for a long time untill I was sick and tired off it.

In the beginning it may feel as if you are using drugs, but it isn't when you will be starting to notice that other people feel about the same way too. This wasn't easy for me to comprehend but I'm finally beginning to understand now.

The effect of the oxytocin is that it takes away the tension I would normally feel which made me feel like an observer but not a participant in the modern day society because of all the stimuli I needed to understand and explain to myself. Although I matured a lot during the past couple of years I really can't say the PDD-NOS symptoms have gotten any less due to my increased cooping skills. Actually they got a lot worse on the inside. This is why I'm using ocytocin on a daily base now and it just feels about right.

But oxytocin alone doesn't do the trick because it actually worsens certain autistic traits. You must actively increase your testosterone levels as well. Otherwise it feels very similar to the effects of an antidepressant or oxazepam without the libido decreasing part. After all oxytocin is prescribed to women only. Everytime I go to the pharmacy the screen turns red and questions are asked!

My hypothesis is that the combination of oxytocin and high testosterone levels also lead to a higher level of vasopressin which is the male counterpart of oxytocin.

Anyway it works for me I feel great and I've still got all of the insight from my more autistic days. Which by the way has now become a force to be reckoned with because I'm feeling stronger, more intelligent and more confident than ever.

(excuse my english I'm from the Netherlands)

Raziel
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09 Jun 2012, 9:11 am

The half-life of oxytocin is supposed to be between 1-6 minutes in the body.

So, how is the oxytocin nasal spray supposed to work, when after 1-6 minutes I just half half of it left in my body?

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ewes
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12 Jun 2012, 12:14 pm

Raziel wrote:

The half-life of oxytocin is supposed to be between 1-6 minutes in the body.

So, how is the oxytocin nasal spray supposed to work, when after 1-6 minutes I just half half of it left in my body?

The desired effect is not meant to be present all the time. That would only make you feel "good an fulfilled" all the time until you'll eventually get tired of it and create all kinds of other non-existing psychological problems because of it. After all the substance is "normally" only released when you have a positive social interaction or abundantly when you climax during sexual intercourse. Even then the effect only has a duration of a few minutes or even much less. But it stimulates the production of other substances in your body and negates the effects of stress, anxiety and even depression for a while. And even better it makes things that were normally futile in my opinion more worthwhile.

The only moments when I felt a comparable sensation in the past was when I was occupied by an obsession (like getting a kill streak in Modern Warfare or reading a good book etc.) But never through just plain interaction with other people unless they shared the same interests. But even then I was only confirming my own beliefs and generally not listening to what the other had to say.

My hypothesis: "The receptors in my brain to process oxytocin are somewhat damaged or paralysed"

So I stimulate them by using the spray and letting my body get used to the feeling without any form of accomplishment beforehand. Neurotypical people always seemed to laugh and amuse themselves with virtually nothing in my opinion.

Now I understand why.

MsNattyable
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12 Jun 2012, 12:48 pm

NeueZiel wrote:

YERP. I had do a double take on that..

Well my boyfriend believed oxytocin caused a lot of issues for me. And that being induced (oxytocin) caused a lot of my postpartrum depression (Tho i had depression before too)

He felt I was had an oxytocin addiction , which is what caused a lot of our relationship issues as I was finding ways to receive it from other people /him etc etc etc..But after a while it all went away took over 1 year after birth. Not really sure tbh. -_-

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