Are we humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so minuscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? If “chimps are us” should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arm’s length. Are humans cognitively unique after all?
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Oxytocin Promotes Social Behaviour in Autistics
The hormone oxytocin is known to promote mother-offspring bonds and social relationships and is often deficient in people with autism. This group of French researchers administered inhalant oxytocin to a number of high-functioning autistics and Aspergers Syndrome individuals and measured increases in their ability to react partially to cooperative individuals in a ball-throwing game and to greatly improve their attention to faces, and especially eyes, when given pictures of faces to look at. All fits very nicely with the social intelligence/mind-blindness theories of autism.
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