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Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by scythe on Saturday October 25, 2014 @01:38PM (#8508794)
Yeah, I love it when some two-bit mouse study is blown up by people who obviously don't have an agenda as though it supplies some universal truth about human behavior.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/06/are_certain_behaviors...

>I'm telling you this not because I care about finger lengths, but because you are being corrupted.

>The article doesn't even have to spell it out for you: they just have to write "there's a relationship to testosterone " and we'll make the cultural/social value judgments ourselves. But they leave nothing to chance; thus Time Magazine.

>That's not an unfortunate, unexpected by product of science-- it is the very point of it. In order for you to obtain this knowledge, you have to lose some other knowledge of equivalent value.

>Once it's happened, once you've allowed this into your brain, there is no escape, ever, any more than there is an escape from oil. No matter what else they discover, you will always have the suspicion that trading-- and lesbianism and risk taking and hand eye coordination-- are masculine traits.

Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by ritchiea on Saturday October 25, 2014 @01:51PM (#8508829)
Is this news? There have been studies for years showing Oxytocin (and also Vasopressin) is an important neurotransmitter in feelings of affection. I imagine the degree of the effect could be interesting, but I suspect this was voted up because of the original clickbaity title combined with being outside the typical domain for HN articles.
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by GuiA on Saturday October 25, 2014 @12:46PM (#8508663)
Non clickbait-y description of the paper (from their abstract):

"We report the discovery of a population of somatostatin (Sst)-positive, regular spiking interneurons that express the oxytocin receptor (OxtrINs). Silencing of OxtrINs in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of female mice resulted in loss of social interest in male mice specifically during the sexually receptive phase of the estrous cycle. This sociosexual deficit was also present in mice in which the Oxtr gene was conditionally deleted from the mPFC and in control mice infused with an Oxtr antagonist."

Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by cowpig on Saturday October 25, 2014 @12:51PM (#8508679)
I feel like there's an in-between to be found
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by kens on Saturday October 25, 2014 @02:42PM (#8508970)
If you're getting a feeling of déjà vu, this paper was discussed 15 days ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8437022
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by jjallen on Saturday October 25, 2014 @01:58PM (#8508850)
The graphical abstract is the best part about this. I don't read many real scientific papers anymore, so it was nice to see that.
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by switchb4 on Saturday October 25, 2014 @12:58PM (#8508699)
Wow! This is interesting and kind of motivating also
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by lotsofmangos on Saturday October 25, 2014 @12:55PM (#8508686)
Even with oxytocin, I would find it very hard to choose between a box of mice and a box of lego, if offered.
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Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by andyl on Saturday October 25, 2014 @12:58PM (#8508698)
Brave New World
Re:Oxytocin Modulates Sociosexual Behavior in Female Mice by Multics on Saturday October 25, 2014 @01:09PM (#8508726)
Sorry for deleting the parent comment. Got down-voted.

I would say that's a reasonable course of action.

Seemed like an obvious conclusion to the study.

Perhaps people believe the opposite is true: being able to control chemicals -- within an animal -- in no way whatsoever affords any control over the animal itself!