BetsyRath wrote:
Oxytocin is a hormone. The drug forms are pitocin and another which escapes me.
I also had failure to progress in labor with my first and was given pitocin. I did not experience anything like what the previous poster experienced. In fact, it had no mood altering affects to me (then again, when you're in hard labor, you aren't exactly noticing this crap).
).
In both pregnancies I didnt have so much as braxton-hicks contractions, both were two weeks late and had to be taken c-section because my body wasnt releasing pitocin; they gave me a pitocin drip the first time but after 30 hrs of labor performed the c-section. I also had problems lactating I never leaked like other women I had to nurse constantly just to feed properly.
this is a quote that put a very different spin on this experiment that the likely NT scientists may not have considered or may not care if they did.
"Good grief! Look at the "improvement" brought about by that nasal
spray (from Michelle D's blog):
---begin quote
The widespread message arising from Andari et al. (in press) is that
the hormone oxytocin "may be a powerful weapon in fighting autism" or
words to that effect.
The heart of this study is a computer game version of catch which
appears to involve four human players. When a player is thrown the
ball, he must then throw it to another player of his choice. Every
time a player receives the ball, he receives a bit of money.
In Andari et al. (in press), small groups of autistic and nonautistic
adults ("P") individually play this game with three strangers ("A" "B"
"C"). Much is done to persuade the autistic and nonautistic
participants that the strangers, who in fact are elaborately
programmed, are actual, present, proximate (in adjacent booths),
decision-making human beings.
The three strangers start by equally distributing the ball to the
other players. Then the elaborate program kicks in: A and C
increasingly favour one player (P and B, respectively) while shunning
the others. B's behaviour does not change.
In a prototypical display of us-vs-them thinking, the nonautistic Ps
responded by ganging up with A to reap the social and monetary gains
of a close alliance founded on the exclusion of half the players.
The autistic participants in contrast displayed no such selfish and
discriminatory behaviour. They continued to throw the ball to the
other players in equal proportion, ignoring their self-interest in
favour of keeping all players equally included.
Further, autistics' subjective ratings of the other players revealed
that the autistic Ps did not have the kinds of biases that are
routinely called hypocrisy. They did not judge C, who shared the most
with B, as worse or less trustworthy than A, who shared the most with
themselves.
According to Andari et al. (in press), autistics "cannot understand or
engage in social situations," as evidenced by autistics' outstandingly
altruistic performance in this game. It is this profound social
deficit, this altruistic autistic behaviour, that was targeted for
treatment.
And indeed, the treatment was successful. Autistics randomly
administered a nasal mist containing oxytocin, rather than a saline
placebo, significantly improved. They became willing to work with one
of the players in an effort to shun and discriminate against the other
two, and thereby get more than their fair share of money and
attention. They became willing to see the player who shared with them
as good and trustworthy, and the player who shared with someone else
as bad and untrustworthy. They learned and displayed selfishness and
hypocrisy and us-vs-them thinking. Their objectivity, fairness, and
altruism were--temporarily- -cured.
Then this finding was replicated in a second small group of autistic
adults who performed the same task but without monetary rewards.
Success! Cue the avalanche of blogging and media stories. Uta Frith
says, "This could be revolutionary. "
----end quote
Blog:
http://autismcrisis/blogspot.com/2010/ 02/oxytocin- versus-autism- cure-for.
html
15 Feb 2010, 6:47 pm
