Safety of glucosamine, examined on ants as models

Arthritis is one of the most spread illnesses and is treated using essentially glucosamine. Since some years, the efficiency and even the safety of this drug is debated. Indeed, a placebo has often an effect similar to that of glucosamine, and in some cases, this drug appeared to induce cells’ death. In the present work, we examined the ethological and physiological effects of glucosamine using ants as models. No severe adverse effect was found: the ants’ sensitive perception, social relationship, cognition, learning and memory were not impacted by glucosamine consumption. Moreover, this drug leaded to no dependence, and its effect slowly vanished in about 14hours after weaning. Glucosamine only increased the ants’ activity and locomotion. Body movements are known as being beneficial to patients suffering from arthritis. Therefore, we cautiously hypothesize that one potential beneficial effect of glucosamine may result from an increase of activity and locomotion it induces.

Closeness is Enough for Friends, but not Mates or Kin: Mate and Kinship Premiums in India and U.S.

Close relationship researchers have proposed that the increased sharing, helping, and sacrifice among social partners of all kinds—friends, spouses, and biological kin—is mediated by the same internal indicator: the feeling of emotional closeness. However, recent work on "kinship premiums" in the U.S. and Europe shows that emotional closeness is not sufficient to account for increased giving among genetic kin, suggesting that closeness may not be a sufficient proximate mechanism to account for giving in other evolutionarily important relationships. Using a hypothetical social discounting paradigm with a $75 reward, we test for such premiums among mates, close friends, and kin in two cultural settings where researchers have proposed key differences in relationship cognition–India (N=63) and the U.S. (N=284). We find that emotional closeness substantially mediates (often fully) the effect of close friendship on the amount of money forgone, suggesting that this is a key factor in the increased sharing observed among friends. On the other hand, people on average report sacrificing an additional $8.3 (95% CI: $4.5-$12.1) for mates and $9.7 (95% CI: $6.5-$12.8) for genetic kin when removing the effects of closeness. Importantly, these effects are not statistically different across samples from the U.S. and India. These results show that people use relationship-specific information about genetic relatedness and pair bonding in addition to general indicators of emotional closeness when making decisions to share with others.Please find the final version at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.10.002

Toward a Radically Embodied Neuroscience of Attachment and Relationships?

Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982) posits the existence of internal working models as a foundational feature of human bonds. Radical embodied approaches instead suggest that cognition requires no computation or representation, favoring a cognition situated in a body in an environmental context with affordances for action (Barrett, 2011; Chemero, 2009; Wilson & Golonka, 2013). We explore whether embodied approaches to social soothing, interpersonal warmth, separation distress, and support seeking could replace representational constructs such as internal working models with a view of relationship cognition anchored in the resources afforded to the individual by their brain, body, and environment in interaction.We review the neurobiological bases for social attachments and relationships and attempt to delineate how these systems overlap or don’t with more basic physiological systems in ways that support or contradict a radical embodied explanation. We suggest that many effects might be the result of the fact that relationship cognition depends on and emerges out of the action of neural systems that regulate several clearly physically grounded systems. For example, the neuropeptide oxytocin appears to be central to attachment and pair-bond behavior (Carter & Keverne, 2002) and is implicated in social thermoregulation more broadly, being necessary for maintaining a warm body temperature as has been discovered in rats (Kasahara et al., 2007) and humans (Beck et al., 1979).Finally, we discuss the most challenging issues around taking a radically embodied perspective on social relationships. We find the most crucial challenge in individual differences in support seeking and responses to social contact, which have long been thought to be a function of representational structures in the mind (e.g., Baldwin, 1995). Together we entertain the thought to explain such individual differences without mediating representations or computations.This paper was published in Frontiers:Beckes, L., IJzerman, H., & Tops, M. (2015). Toward a radically embodied neuroscience of attachment and relationships. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 9.

Relational Discrepancy Theory: The Implications of Self-Discrepancy Theory for Dyadic Relationships and for the Emergence of Social Structure

Relationship formation and maintenance is guided by more than similarity between partners' actual selves. Expanding the domain of self-discrepancy theory (SDT; Higgins, 1987), we propose that a type of discrepancy previously not considered—discrepancies between self-aspects of relational partners—is central to relationship cognition, including perceptions of intimacy and trust, and to the emergence of roles within relationships. Our argument relates both to unconstrained environments, where individuals freely choose partners, and constrained environments (e.g., workplaces) with relationships imposed. We argue that SDT's prediction of emotional consequences from discrepancies permits a motivational account of why individuals might form and maintain relationships in terms of hierarchies and roles.