BACKGROUND The presence of social support has been associated with decreased stress responsiveness. Recent animal studies suggest that the neuropeptide oxytocin is implicated both in prosocial behavior and in the central nervous control of neuroendocrine responses to stress. This study was designed to determine the effects of social support and oxytocin on cortisol, mood, and anxiety responses ...

Although the lesions of patients with impaired social behaviour encompass both orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex (OFC and ACC), attempts to model such impairments in animals have focused on the OFC. However, recent neuroimaging attempts to identify the neural correlates of social interaction have emphasized the relative importance of ACC. Here we report the effect of circumscribed exc...

BACKGROUND Health systems increasingly try to make their services more responsive to users' expectations. In the context of the World Health Report 2000, WHO developed the concept of health system responsiveness as a performance parameter. Responsiveness relates to the system's ability to respond to service users' legitimate expectations of non-medical aspects. We used this concept in an effort...

background: world health organization (who) defines three goals to assess the performance of a health system: the state of health, fairness in financial contribution and responsiveness. we assessed the responsiveness of health system for patients with diabetes in a defined population cohort in tehran, iran. methods: total responsiveness and eight domains (prompt attention, dignity, communicatio...

Aggressive behavior can be studied as either offensive or defensive responses to a stimulus. The studies discussed in this review are focused on the peripubertal development of offensive aggression in male golden hamsters and its responsiveness to repeated social stress. Quantitative and qualitative changes in offensive responses were analyzed during this period. Quantitative changes in offensi...

Androgens are classically thought of as the sex steroids controlling male reproduction. However, in recent years evidence has accumulated showing that androgens can also be affected by the interactions between conspecifics, suggesting reciprocal interactions between androgens and behaviour. These results have been interpreted as an adaptation for individuals to adjust their agonistic motivation...

BACKGROUND Recent research has indicated that autism is not a discrete disorder and that family members of autistic probands have an increased likelihood of exhibiting autistic symptoms with a wide range of severity, often below the threshold for a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. OBJECTIVE To examine the distribution and genetic structure of autistic traits in the general population...