scholarly journals The Effects of Acute Arginine Vasopressin Administration on Social Cognition in Healthy Males

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda R. Kenyon ◽  
Gail A. Alvares ◽  
Ian B. Hickie ◽  
Adam J. Guastella
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Arginine Vasopressin ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Bond Formation ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Young Males ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Mind

The structurally similar neuropeptides and hormones oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) play significant and complex roles in modulating a range of social behaviours, including social recognition and bond formation. Although OT has well-known roles in facilitating prosocial behaviors and enhancing emotion recognition, AVP has received increasing interest for diverging effects on social cognition behaviour most notably in males. The current study aimed to determine whether AVP also modulates the ability to understand emotion. Using a randomised double blind procedure, 45 healthy young males received either an AVP or placebo nasal spray and completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). In contrast to previous findings, there were no significant differences observed in performance on the RMET between AVP and placebo groups, even after examining items separated by task difficulty, emotional valence, and gender. This study provides diverging evidence from previous findings and adds to the growing body of research exploring the influence of neuropeptide hormones in social behaviour. It demonstrates that in this sample of participants, AVP does not enhance the ability to understand higher order emotion from others. Implications and suggestions for future AVP administration studies are discussed.

scholarly journals Gender as Embedded Social Cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Diekman ◽  
Toni Schmader
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The Self ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Gendered Expectations

We examine gender as a cultural construct enacted through social cognitive processes that are embedded within the self, social interactions, and societal institutions. The embeddedness perspective elaborates how the binary gender categorization can create quite real gendered outcomes and experiences even if gender differences are not biologically essential. These categories take on a reality outside of the mind of perceivers because the meanings attached to gender categories are shared by others in the culture, enacted in social interactions, internalized into self-views, and maintained by social systems. Societal institutions explicitly and implicitly organize around gender, producing gendered norms, roles, and expectations. These norms, roles, and expectations shape the nature of interpersonal interactions both within and across gender lines and an individual’s self-selected experiences. Critically, these social interactions and personal choices in turn create behavioral and cognitive confirmation of the gendered expectations of others. Gendered expectations and experiences become internalized into the self, including one’s own self-concept and gender identity. We close by examining implications of this perspective for gender differences and similarities in social cognition, as well as malleability and stability in gender cognitions and outcomes.

scholarly journals Negative and Neutral Valences of Affective Theory of Mind are More Impaired than Positive Valence in Clinically Stable Schizophrenia Patients

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 460-464
Author(s):  
Thammanard Charernboon
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Normal Controls

Objective People with schizophrenia show impairment in social cognition, such as emotion recognition and theory of mind. The current study aims to compare the ability of clinically stable schizophrenia patients to decode the positive, negative and neutral affective mental state of others with educational match-paired normal control.Methods 50 people with schizophrenia and 50 matched controls were compared on the positive, negative and neutral emotional valence of affective theory of mind using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Tests.Results The results showed that people with schizophrenia performed worse in negative and neutral emotional valence than normal controls; however, no significant differences in decoding positive valence were found.Conclusion Our data suggest that there is variability in the performance of affective theory of mind according to emotion valence; the impairments seem to be specific to only negative and neutral emotions, but not positive ones.

scholarly journals Gender Differences in Social Cognition: A Cross-Sectional Pilot Study of Recently Diagnosed Patients with Schizophrenia and Healthy Subjects

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (8) ◽  
pp. 538-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillem Navarra-Ventura ◽  
Sol Fernandez-Gonzalo ◽  
Marc Turon ◽  
Esther Pousa ◽  
Diego Palao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Mind

Objectives: This study had 2 objectives: First, to explore the gender-related differences in emotional processing (EP) and theory of mind—both cognitive (CToM) and affective (AToM)—in patients with schizophrenia and in a control group of healthy subjects; and, second, to examine, from a gender perspective, the possible association between EP and CToM in the AToM performance. Methods: Forty patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder were recruited and matched by gender, age and years of education with 40 healthy subjects. EP was measured by the pictures of facial affect (POFA) test. CToM was measured using first- and second-order false-belief (FB) stories. AToM was measured by the reading the mind in the eyes test (RMET). Group and gender differences in CToM were analysed using the X2 test, whereas EP and AToM were analysed using the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U Test and a general linear model. Results were adjusted by intelligence quotient and negative symptomatology. Results: Patients with schizophrenia underperformed against healthy subjects in the POFA test, second-order FB, and RMET, but not in first-order FB. No significant gender differences were found. However, there was a trend showing that females outperformed males in the POFA ( P = 0.056). Group ( P < 0.001), POFA ( P < 0.001) and second-order FB ( P = 0.022) were the best factors predicting RMET performance (adjusted R2 = 0.584). Conclusions: Our results suggest that the illness is the main factor related to the deficit in social cognition, except for the basic aspects of the CToM that were unimpaired in most patients. Nevertheless, the influence of female gender in EP should not be neglected in any group. Finally, the hierarchal interaction between these domains is discussed.

Mind Cure

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
Keyword(s):  
White Male ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Psychology ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
First Americans ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Political Economic

Mindfulness is widely claimed to improve health and performance, and historians typically say that efforts to promote meditation and yoga therapeutically began in the 1970s. In fact, they began much earlier, and that early history offers important lessons for the present and future. This book traces the history of mind-body medicine from eighteenth-century Mesmerism to the current Mindfulness boom and reveals how religion, race, and gender have shaped events. Many of the first Americans to advocate meditation for healing were women leaders of the Mind Cure movement, which emerged in the late nineteenth century. They believed that by transforming their consciousness, they could also transform oppressive circumstances in which they lived, and some were activists for social reform. Trained by Buddhist and Hindu missionaries, these women promoted meditation through personal networks, religious communities, and publications. Some influenced important African American religious movements, as well. For women and black men, Mind Cure meant not just happiness but liberation in concrete political, economic, and legal terms. The Mind Cure movement exerted enormous pressure on mainstream American religion and medicine, and in response, white, male doctors and clergy with elite academic credentials appropriated some of its methods and channeled them into scientific psychology and medicine. As mental therapeutics became medicalized, individualized, and then commodified, the religious roots of meditation, like the social justice agendas of early Mind Curers, fell away. After tracing how we got from Mind Cure to Mindfulness, this book reveals what got lost in the process.

The Acute Effects of Androstenedione Supplementation in Healthy Young Males

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig S. Ballantyne ◽  
Stuart M. Phillips ◽  
Jay R. Macdonald ◽  
Mark A. Tarnopolsky ◽  
J. Duncan Macdougall
Keyword(s):  
Luteinizing Hormone ◽  
Resistance Exercise ◽  
Elevated Plasma ◽  
Acute Effects ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Male Athletes ◽  
Young Males ◽  
Plasma Estradiol ◽  
Key Words Testosterone ◽  
Heavy Resistance Exercise

We examined the effects of androstenedione supplementation on the hormonal profile of 10 males and its interaction with resistance exercise. Baseline testosterone, luteinizing hormone, estradiol, and androstenedione concentrations were established by venous sampling at 3 hr intervals over 24 hr. Subjects ingested 200 mg of androstenedione daily for 2 days, with second and third day blood samples. Two weeks later, they ingested androstenedione or a placebo for 2 days, in a double-blind, cross-over design. On day 2, they performed heavy resistance exercise with blood sampled before, after, and 90 min post. The supplement elevated plasma androstenedione 2-3-fold and luteinizing hormone ∼70% but did not alter testosterone concentration. Exercise elevated testosterone, with no difference between conditions. Exercise in the supplemented condition significantly elevated plasma estradiol by ∼83% for 90 min. Androstenedione supplementation, thus, is unlikely to provide male athletes with any anabolic benefit and, with heavy resistance exercise, elevates estrogen. Key Words: testosterone, luteinizing hormone, estradiol, fluid shifts, resistance exercise

scholarly journals Effect of acute citalopram on self-referential emotional processing and social cognition in healthy volunteers

BJPsych Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hobbs ◽  
Susannah E. Murphy ◽  
Lucy Wright ◽  
James Carson ◽  
Indra Van Assche ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Healthy Volunteers ◽  
Antidepressant Treatment ◽  
Affective Learning ◽  
The Self ◽  
Affective Processing ◽  
Antidepressant Effect ◽  
Acute Administration ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Prosocial Behaviours

Background Depression is characterised by negative views of the self. Antidepressant treatment may remediate negative self-schema through increasing processing of positive information about the self. Changes in affective processing during social interactions may increase expression of prosocial behaviours, improving interpersonal communications. Aims To examine whether acute administration of citalopram is associated with an increase in positive affective learning biases about the self and prosocial behaviour. Method Healthy volunteers (n = 41) were randomised to either an acute 20 mg dose of citalopram or matched placebo in a between-subjects double-blind design. Participants completed computer-based cognitive tasks designed to measure referential affective processing, social cognition and expression of prosocial behaviours. Results Participants administered citalopram made more cooperative choices than those administered placebo in a prisoner's dilemma task (β = 20%, 95% CI: 2%, 37%). Exploratory analyses indicated that participants administered citalopram showed a positive bias when learning social evaluations about a friend (β = 4.06, 95% CI: 0.88, 7.24), but not about the self or a stranger. Similarly, exploratory analyses found evidence of increased recall of positive words and reduced recall of negative words about others (β = 2.41, 95% CI: 0.89, 3.93), but not the self, in the citalopram group. Conclusions Participants administered citalopram showed greater prosocial behaviours, increased positive recall and increased positive learning of social evaluations towards others. The increase in positive affective bias and prosocial behaviours towards others may, at least partially, be a mechanism of antidepressant effect. However, we found no evidence that citalopram influenced self-referential processing.

scholarly journals No Self Without Salience: Affective and Self-relevance Ratings of 552 Emotionally Valenced and Neutral Dutch Words

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lora I. Dimitrova ◽  
Eline M. Vissia ◽  
Hanneke Geugies ◽  
Hedwig Hofstetter ◽  
Sima Chalavi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Emotional Salience ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIt is unknown how self-relevance is dependent on emotional salience. Emotional salience encompasses an individual's degree of attraction or aversion to emotionally-valenced information. The current study investigated the interconnection between self and salience through the evaluation of emotional valence and self-relevance. 56 native Dutch participants completed a questionnaire assessing valence, intensity, and self-relevance of 552 Dutch nouns and verbs. One-way repeated-measures ANCOVA investigated the relationship between valence and self, age and gender. Repeated-measures ANCOVA also tested the relationship between valence and self with intensity ratings and effects of gender and age. Results showed a significant main effect of valence for self-relevant words. Intensity analyses showed a main effect of valence but not of self-relevance. There were no significant effects of gender and age. The most important finding presents that self-relevance is dependent on valence. These findings concerning the relationship between self and salience opens avenues to study an individual's self-definition.

A Comparative Study of a New Food Supplement, ViviScal®, with Fish Extract for the Treatment of Hereditary Androgenic Alopecia in Young Males

1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 445-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Lassus ◽  
E Eskelinen
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Group ◽  
Food Supplement ◽  
Androgenic Alopecia ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Once Daily ◽  
Young Males ◽  
Highly Active ◽  
Parallel Group ◽  
The Mean

A controlled, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study compared the effects of ViviScal® (a new food supplement incorporating special marine extracts and a silica compound) with those of a fish extract in the treatment of young males with hereditary androgenic alopecia. The pretreatment histological diagnosis was alopecia with a mild to moderate perifollicular inflammation zone. The study consisted of 20 subjects who received two tablets of ViviScal® once daily and 20 who received two tablets of fish extract once daily for 6 months. The mean patient age and mean duration and severity of baldness compared well between the two groups. Most patients had been treated with long-term topical 2% minoxidil for 1 year or more prior to the study. At baseline and after 6 months' treatment, a biopsy was taken for histological examination. A non-vellus hair count was performed at baseline and after 2, 4 and 6 months. In the fish extract treatment group three patients withdrew from the study before the fourth month due to lack of therapeutic effect. After 6 months' treatment, patients receiving ViviScal® showed a mean increase in non-vellus hair of 38% compared with a 2% increase in the fish extract treatment group (P < 0.0001). In the ViviScal® group, 19 (95%) subjects showed both clinical and histological cure, whereas none treated with fish extract showed any clinical or histological difference after 6 months' treatment ( P < 0.0001). In both groups, a minimal decrease in the erythemal index was observed. In conclusion, ViviScal® appears to be the first highly active treatment for androgenic alopecia in young males.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document