Arginine vasopressin (AVP) and related peptides affect social behaviors in numerous species, but AVP influences on human social functions have not yet been established. Here, we describe how intranasal AVP administration differentially affects social communication in men and women, and we propose a mechanism through which it may exert those influences. In men, AVP stimulates agonistic facial motor patterns in response to the faces of unfamiliar men and decreases perceptions of the friendliness of those faces. In contrast, in women, AVP stimulates affiliative facial motor patterns in response to the faces of unfamiliar women and increases perceptions of the friendliness of those faces. AVP also affected autonomic responsiveness to threatening faces and increased anxiety, which may underlie both communication patterns by promoting different social strategies in stressful contexts in men and women.affiliation ͉ aggression ͉ anxiety ͉ autism ͉ emotion C entral arginine vasopressin (AVP; mammals) and arginine vasotocin (AVT; nonmammalian homologue) systems modulate social behaviors in numerous species from diverse vertebrate groups (1). It has therefore been proposed that social functions of these peptides were highly conserved during vertebrate evolution and, if retained in humans, that variations in the AVP system may be related to individual differences in sociality in our own species, particularly aggressive (2) and͞or affiliative (3, 4) tendencies. It has even been hypothesized that extreme variations in the AVP system may be related to the social dysfunctions associated with autism (5-7).Among the social processes most consistently influenced by AVP and AVT in animal models are those related to social communication, particularly the generation of, and͞or responses to, stereotypical signals associated with courtship and aggression. In humans, facial expressions are associated with such forms of emotional communication (8), so we predicted that AVP would influence the motor patterns associated with facial responses to social stimuli, particularly in men, because AVP͞ AVT systems are most often associated with the regulation of male-typical patterns of social communication (1). Indeed, in a preliminary study, we showed that electromyographic (EMG) responses of the corrugator supercilii, which are associated with threat (9), are increased in men by intranasal AVP administration (10). However, we do not yet know whether AVP also modulates social communication in women, which is an intriguing possibility because sexual dimorphisms typical of AVP͞AVT systems in other species in which males have more AVP͞AVT-producing cells and͞or fiber projections have not been detected in human brains (11). We also do not yet know whether AVP can influence social cognition as well as facial motor patterns related to social communication, nor anything about the mechanisms through which AVP may affect social communication in humans.To address these fundamental questions and to determine how rapidly social processes are affected by intr...

At its core, the polyvagal theory proposes that peptides affect simple social behaviors through influences on hindbrain autonomic processes. To test this mechanism, we compared the effects of fore- and hindbrain infusions of vasotocin (VT) on social approach behavior in goldfish. VT infusions into the 4th ventricle, which ink infusions verified did not move rostrally to the forebrain, inhibited social approach at a lower dose than did infusions into the 3rd ventricle, which did diffuse to the hindbrain. Thus, VT actions in the hindbrain appear to modulate this simple social behavior. We then identified a population of substance P (SP)-immunoreactive cells in the hindbrain that are encapsulated by putative VT terminals, and determined that those cells project to the periphery. Injecting SP peripherally, as with infusing VT centrally, inhibited social approach, and peripheral injections of an SP antagonist, but not central infusions, abolished the behavioral effects of central VT infusions. We therefore propose that VT inhibits social approach by activating SP cells in the hindbrain, which then induce changes in body state that feed back to the brain. Central VT infusions did not inhibit feeding, suggesting that this VT mechanism selectively affects appetitive social responses. Because VT projections to the hindbrain are highly conserved in vertebrates, influences on peripheral feedback processes like the one we have described in goldfish may reflect how VT affected simple social behaviors in ancestral vertebrates and thus preadapted members of this peptide family to play increasingly complex roles in social and emotional regulation in modern animals.

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InhaltDie Vorstellungen über fremde Religionen sind weitgehend unerforscht. Die zahlreichen Studien über Vorurteile haben ihren Gegenstand nicht in den Religionen als kulturellen Gebilden, sondern in Personen, die bestimmten Religionen angehören. Die in Tübingen 1992 und 1993 durchgeführte Untersuchung versucht, diese Lücke vergleichend zu schließen. Sie geht methodisch davon aus, daß in den Köpfen Vorstellungen über Religionen existieren; Bilder, die durch Medien erzeugt werden. Diese Bilder sind weitgehend abhängig von Erfahrung und weisen einen hohen Grad innerer Konsistenz auf. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß ein eher negatives Bild vom islam und ein eher positives vom Buddhismus vorherrscht.