Focus on social neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
April 16, 2012
The neural underpinnings of social behaviour are discussed in a special collection of review and opinion articles published this week in Nature Neuroscience.
In a pair of complementary perspective articles, Naomi Eisenberger and Andreas Meyer-Lindberg describe the cross-talk between social factors in everyday life and physical and mental health, respectively: social disconnection and stress is associated with more bodily illness, as well as a higher risk for disorders such as schizophrenia. However, the brain is an extremely plastic organ, and in their piece, Richard Davidson and Bruce McEwen review how interventions such as meditation are likely to result in brain plasticity associated with positive outcomes. They also look at animal work suggesting that both positive and negative factors can result in structural and functional changes in the brain.
Other articles in the special issue review how hormones such as oxytocin and testosterone modulate social behaviors ranging from friendliness to aggression in both animals and humans, and a critical review of studies of how the brain produces empathy, the ability to feel what another person is feeling, amongst other topics.
doi: 10.1038/nn.3087
Research highlights
-
Aug 12
Ageing: Mutations in the ageing human heart identifiedNature Aging
-
Aug 12
Palaeontology: T. rex and relatives traded big eyes for bigger bitesCommunications Biology
-
Aug 10
Epidemiology: Estimating the risk of SARS-related coronaviruses from bats in Southeast AsiaNature Communications
-
Aug 5
Microbiology: Single switch makes Escherichia coli beneficial insect partnerNature Microbiology
-
Aug 5
Conservation: More than half of unassessable species may be at risk of extinctionCommunications Biology
-
Aug 4
Physiology: Restoring cellular functions in pigs after deathNature