Genetics and Sociality Researchers show in the journal “PNAS”
how friends can relieve stress Social support from family and
friends is one of the most powerful protective factors against
stress-related diseases - from heart attacks to depression.
Prof. Markus Heinrichs, Professor of Biological Psychology at
the University of Freiburg, demonstrated in 2003 for the first
time in humans that the neurohormone oxytocin plays a central
role in both the control of stress and the stress-reducing
effect of social support. He has also shown in a series of
studies that oxytocin administered as a nasal spray increases
trust and empathy for others and therefore has therapeutic
potential for a range of mental disorders. But could the
oxytocin system also help explain why support from close friends
and family has very different effects on individuals? In the
current issue of the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the Freiburg
psychologists and neuroscientists Prof. Markus