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Weird Science obsesses about our immune system’s compulsions

Embarrassment is truly painful. The secret to getting one-night-stands is …

Obsessive compulsive on the cellular and organismal level, via strep throat: In some ways, an autoimmune disease is a bit like an obsessive compulsive disorder, with the immune system getting so keyed up to clean up an infection that it starts going after anything that even looks like the original invader. But now there's an indication that some cases of obsessive-compulsive behavior are the result of an autoimmune disease. Apparently, streptococcal infections (think strep throat) can leave their younger victims suffering from tics and other obsessive-compulsive syndromes. A recent paper describes how inoculations with strep bacteria could trigger an analogous set of symptoms in mice. Apparently, the same symptoms could be transferred to new mice simply by injecting them with antibodies isolated from the first, indicating the involvement of an immune response. Weird on many levels.

A vicious Facebook cycle: The title of this paper about says it all—"More Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?" The only thing that's missing is the answer, which is a statistically significant, personality controlled, and hierarchically regressed "yes," at least when it comes to college undergraduates. The authors speculate that it's a bit of self-reinforcing process. Anyone who's prone to use Facebook will obviously use it to check out their new partner, come across notes and photos that are probably ambiguous (or evidence of past relationships that's not), get a bit jealous, and start searching for more details.

Birds with a hormone flock together: In humans, the hormone oxytocin has a powerful effect on social behavior, helping mediate a mother's bonding with her offspring and generally predisposing us to look upon our fellow species members a bit more favorably. So, if you think about it, the results of a study of its avian equivalent shouldn't be so surprising. And yet, it seems amusing that you can apparently manipulate a bird's decision to get involved in large groups by altering levels of the bird equivalent of oxytocin. The unexpected finding is that the birds are equally social—they just don't like large groups.

Not only embarrassing, but painful: This paper lays the issue out right in the first sentence: social pain may use the same neural systems that underlie physical pain. It's an idea with testable consequences, and the authors go after one of them. If opioid receptors are involved with physical pain, they're probably involved with social pain, so they tested a bunch of volunteers for their response to social pain, while genotyping them at the �-opioid receptor locus. One particular variant of the gene was found to associate sensitivity to being rejected in social contexts. So, if you're too paralyzed by fear of rejection to ask someone for a date, heroin should do the trick (we kid!).

Monkey see human do monkey impression: Those of you with siblings have undoubtedly suffered periods where they thought it would be funny to immediately repeat everything you said (or perhaps you tormented your sibling using this method). Imitation may not always be the sincerest form of flattery for humans, but Capuchin monkeys are apparently good with it. In interactions with strangers, the monkeys showed a pronounced preference for humans that imitated their actions. The authors speculate that, even if it can be annoying in some modern contexts, imitation is probably a way of facilitating social behavior among most primates by demonstrating the equivalent of a shared norm.

Results that will surprise no one: It took one researcher each from German, the UK, and US to determine that guys will pretty much sleep with anyone who asks, while women will generally only accept offers from the most physically attractive of partners. So, if you're a guy looking for a one night stand, it might behoove you to check the mirror first.

Listing image by Lawrence Berkeley National Labs

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Channel Ars Technica