Biochemical warfare?

Trust drug may cure social phobia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7412438.stm

A nasal spray which increases our trust for strangers is showing promise as a treatment for social phobia, say scientists from Zurich University...

snip

Powerful effect

Previous studies have shown that participants in "trust games" took greater risks with their money after inhaling the hormone via a nasal spray.

In this latest experiment, published in the journal Neuron, the researchers asked volunteer subjects to take part in a similar game.

They were each asked to contribute money to a human trustee, with the understanding that the trustee would invest the money and decide whether to return the profits, or betray the subject's trust by keeping the profit.

The subjects also received doses of oxytocin or a placebo via a nasal spray.

After investing, the participants were given feedback on the trustees. When their trust was abused, the placebo group became less willing to invest. But the players who had been given oxytocin continued to trust their money with a broker.

"We can see that oxytocin has a very powerful effect," said Dr Baumgartner.

"The subjects who received oxytocin demonstrated no change in their trust behaviour, even though they were informed that their trust was not honoured in roughly 50% of cases."

In a second game, where the human trustees were replaced by a computer which gave random returns, the hormone made no difference to the players' investment behaviour.

"It appears that oxytocin affects social responses specifically related to trust," Dr Baumgartner said.


They've been mixing WHAT in those lines?????

Maybe they got the idea from that drug for restless leg syndrome. I have seen it advertised on TV. It says that it may decrease sexual inhibitions and increase the desire to gamble. Those are odd side effects. But developing drugs that decrease certain types of inhibitions is not a good sign.