<p>Imagine a pill that makes you more compassionate and more likely to give spare change to someone less fortunate. Scientists have taken a big step in that direction!<br /><br /></p>.<p>Researchers have found that a drug that prolongs the effects of the brain chemical dopamine boosts compassion.<br /><br />The drug changes the neurochemical balance in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, causing a greater willingness to engage in prosocial behaviours, such as ensuring that resources are divided more equally.<br /><br />Future research may lead to a better understanding of the interaction between altered dopamine-brain mechanisms and mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or addiction, and potentially light the way to possible diagnostic tools or treatments for these disorders, researchers said.<br /><br />"Our hope is that medications targeting social function may someday be used to treat these disabling conditions," said Andrew Kayser, from the University of California - San Francisco.<br /><br />In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, participants on two separate visits received a pill containing either a placebo or tolcapone, a drug that prolongs the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward and motivation in the prefrontal cortex.<br /><br />Participants then played a simple economic game in which they divided money between themselves and an anonymous recipient.<br /><br />After receiving tolcapone, participants divided the money with the strangers in a fairer, more egalitarian way than after receiving the placebo.<br /><br />"We typically think of fair-mindedness as a stable characteristic, part of one's personality," said Ming Hsu, a co-principal investigator from the University of California - Berkeley's Haas School of Business.<br /><br />"Our study doesn't reject this notion, but it does show how that trait can be systematically affected by targeting specific neurochemical pathways in the human brain," said Hsu.<br /><br />In this double-blind study of 35 participants, including 18 women, neither participants nor study staff members knew which pills contained the placebo or tolcapone, an FDA-approved drug used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder affecting movement and muscle control.<br /><br />Computational modelling showed that under tolcapone's influence, game players were more sensitive to and less tolerant of social inequity, the perceived relative economic gap between a study participant and a stranger.</p>
<p>Imagine a pill that makes you more compassionate and more likely to give spare change to someone less fortunate. Scientists have taken a big step in that direction!<br /><br /></p>.<p>Researchers have found that a drug that prolongs the effects of the brain chemical dopamine boosts compassion.<br /><br />The drug changes the neurochemical balance in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, causing a greater willingness to engage in prosocial behaviours, such as ensuring that resources are divided more equally.<br /><br />Future research may lead to a better understanding of the interaction between altered dopamine-brain mechanisms and mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or addiction, and potentially light the way to possible diagnostic tools or treatments for these disorders, researchers said.<br /><br />"Our hope is that medications targeting social function may someday be used to treat these disabling conditions," said Andrew Kayser, from the University of California - San Francisco.<br /><br />In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, participants on two separate visits received a pill containing either a placebo or tolcapone, a drug that prolongs the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward and motivation in the prefrontal cortex.<br /><br />Participants then played a simple economic game in which they divided money between themselves and an anonymous recipient.<br /><br />After receiving tolcapone, participants divided the money with the strangers in a fairer, more egalitarian way than after receiving the placebo.<br /><br />"We typically think of fair-mindedness as a stable characteristic, part of one's personality," said Ming Hsu, a co-principal investigator from the University of California - Berkeley's Haas School of Business.<br /><br />"Our study doesn't reject this notion, but it does show how that trait can be systematically affected by targeting specific neurochemical pathways in the human brain," said Hsu.<br /><br />In this double-blind study of 35 participants, including 18 women, neither participants nor study staff members knew which pills contained the placebo or tolcapone, an FDA-approved drug used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder affecting movement and muscle control.<br /><br />Computational modelling showed that under tolcapone's influence, game players were more sensitive to and less tolerant of social inequity, the perceived relative economic gap between a study participant and a stranger.</p>