Oxytocin linked to group competition

University of Zurich

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Oxytocin also plays a significant role in team competitions. Oxytocin levels rose most sharply following matches against well-known rivals.

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Credit: University of Zurich

Oxytocin – often referred to as the “love hormone” – also plays a role in competitions between groups, a new study led by Charlotte Debras and Adrian Jaeggi from UZH’s Institute of Evolutionary Medicine shows. “Previous work showed that receiving oxytocin via a nasal spray can make people more ‘groupish’,” says Debras, who conducted the study as part of her doctoral research. “But it wasn’t known whether OT naturally increased during group competition.”

Oxytocin levels linked to social context

To systematically study competition, the researchers organized football tournaments together with the Indigenous Tsimane’ people in the Bolivian Amazon. “The Tsimane’ lifestyle has an effect on their hormone levels,” says Jaeggi, who has been conducting research on site since 2011. For example, levels of reproductive hormones like testosterone or progesterone are lower when calories are harder to come by. Meanwhile, the kinds of social factors linked to OT are likely especially important in these highly interdependent societies. To test their hypothesis, the researchers measured oxytocin levels in the urine of football players before and after the matches.

Oxytocin levels increased most strongly after matches against familiar rivals but less so among teams from different communities. When Tsimane’ played against non-Tsimane’ people, however, the increase was again higher. “This suggests that oxytocin is sensitive to the salience of the opposition – showing heightened reactivity both toward familiar competitors and toward a clearly defined out-group,” says Jaeggi.

Higher oxytocin levels in men

One particularly striking finding of the study was that women’s OT levels did not differ before or after games, unlike men’s. Debras mentions several possible explanations for this. “Firstly, women start from higher baseline levels, as many of them were breastfeeding, which could make it harder to detect a change.” It is also possible that football may not hold the same significance for women, as they play less often than men. Another explanation is provided by the “male warrior hypothesis,” which proposes that men have evolved to be generally more invested in group competition. “The most important forms of rivalry for Tsimane’ women may involve relational dynamics, such as managing reputations or jostling for social support, rather than physical competition,” says Debras.

Relevant for cooperation and group boundaries

The study does not make it possible to determine whether the increase in OT primarily promotes cohesion within the team or competition with the opposing group. In team sports, both aspects are closely intertwined. “Cooperation can be a successful way to compete in the game of life, and OT seems to be a key ingredient for this,” says Jaeggi. “OT has been linked to group conflict in many different species, from fish to chimpanzees. Our findings suggest that similar mechanisms are at play in humans.” 

Literature
Charlotte C. Debras et al. Us against Them: Oxytocin Response to Competition in a Small-Scale Human Society. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 6 May, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UK8PA

Contact 

Prof. Adrian V. Jaeggi
Institute of Evolutionary Medicine
University of Zurich
Tel. +41 44 635 05 40
E-mail: adrian.jaeggi@iem.uzh.ch

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Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.17605/OSF.IO/UK8PA 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Us against Them: Oxytocin Response to Competition in a Small-Scale Human Society

Article Publication Date

6-May-2026

 

Probing links between decision-making and mental resilience

Some people display differences in brain responses to rewards and costs from choices they make that are associated with higher psychological resilience.

Society for Neuroscience

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Whether people are mulling over the pros and cons of a purchase or assessing their interactions with new people, they may show a bias in placing more value on perceived positive or negative information. In a new JNeurosci paper, Ulrike Basten and colleagues, from RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau and the University of Amsterdam, explored whether individual differences in processing benefits and costs are linked to psychological resilience. 

The researchers presented 82 participants with images of different colored shapes. Colors and shapes were associated with gains or losses that culminated in real earned money or costs at the end of the experiment. Given the same presentation of different colored shapes, some participants generally put less value on minor losses, which led them to accept more of the offers. Emphasizing this point further, says Basten, “These individuals don’t put more value on rewards, they put less value on negative consequences and have a higher tendency to accept offers with mixed consequences. How they process negative information is different.” Why might this be the case? The researchers found that participants who put less value on minor losses had stronger increases in prefrontal brain activity to the losses and more reduced activity when they received gains. These brain response differences mediated the link between the acceptance bias in decision-making and higher self-reported psychological resilience. 

According to the researchers, their work suggests that stronger prefrontal brain responses to negative information may enable people to control their thoughts and feelings about losses. This control may be what makes these people more psychologically resilient. Says Basten, “We can’t claim causality from our findings, so one next step could be to manipulate the bias by rewarding certain answers—essentially training people to show more positive bias in decision-making—and see if that leads to better resilience.” 

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Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF. 

About JNeurosci 

JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship. 

About The Society for Neuroscience 

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries. 

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Journal

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1734-25.2026 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Positive Bias in Value-Based Decision-Making: Neurocognitive Associations with Resilience

Article Publication Date

11-May-2026

 

Can new research findings help overcome challenges to malaria treatment?

Wiley

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Research published in The FEBS Journal may help overcome challenges to the treatment of malaria—a tropical disease caused by infection of red blood cells with Plasmodium parasites, which are transmitted through infected mosquito bites. The research is based on a strategy that targets an enzyme specific to the parasite, Falcipain-2 (FP2), which is essential for parasite survival and growth within the host.

FP2 allows the parasite to digest human hemoglobin so that it can replicate inside red blood cells, which leads to severe malaria symptoms, including red blood cell destruction. Although FP2 is parasite-specific, it is highly similar to a class of human enzymes called cathepsins. This study therefore sought to determine the detailed structural and functional characterizations of FP2 so that it could be targeting without harming cathepsins.

Previously, the researchers identified that polyethylene glycol (PEG) can form stable interactions with FP2. In this latest study, they focused on how different PEG molecules bind to FP2 and its target, hemoglobin. Their computational analyses identified a binding region, or pocket, of a particular PEG called PEG400 with FP2. This pocket exhibits minimal conservation in human cathepsins. PEG400 was capable of binding FP2 and affecting its digestion of hemoglobin.

“The findings pave the way for designing and incorporating new small molecule inhibitors of FP2 activity, suggesting opportunities for selective antimalarial therapies with a cumulative benefit of reducing off-target specificity,” said corresponding author Sampa Biswas, PhD, who conducted this work while at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, in India, and is currently at InBOL (Indian Barcode of Life) Health Care.

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/febs.70546

 

Additional Information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal
The FEBS Journal is a multidisciplinary, non-profit society journal that publishes full-length high-quality papers and expert reviews relevant to the molecular, cellular and biochemical life sciences. The journal is free to publish in, while offering open-access options.

About Wiley      
Wiley is a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning. With more than 200 years at the center of the scholarly ecosystem, Wiley combines trusted publishing heritage with AI-powered platforms to transform how knowledge is discovered, accessed, and applied. From individual researchers and students to Fortune 500 R&D teams, Wiley enables the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact. From knowledge to impact—Wiley is redefining what's possible in science and learning. Visit us at Wiley.com and Investors.Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Journal

FEBS Journal

DOI

10.1111/febs.70546 

Article Title

PEG400 regulates Falcipain 2 activity through an allosteric mechanism

Article Publication Date

6-May-2026

 

BRIGHT and LanzaTech launch new partnership to accelerate carbon to value biotechnology in Europe

A multi-year collaboration will establish a next-generation C1 biofoundry at DTU to convert industrial carbon emissions into fuels, chemicals, and materials

Technical University of Denmark

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Biofoundry inside. Photo: BRIGHT.

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Credit: BRIGHT

SKOKIE, IL., May 5, 2026 - BRIGHT, the Novo Nordisk Foundation Biotechnology Research Institute for the Green Transition at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA) (“LanzaTech”), a global leader in gas fermentation, have entered a multi‑year agreement to accelerate development of technologies that convert carbon emissions into valuable products.

The partnership runs until April 2028 and includes the design and installation of a next‑generation C1 biofoundry at DTU. This allows LanzaTech to extend its world-class synthetic biology expertise, leveraging BRIGHT’s infrastructure, talent, and regional reach. At the same time, DTU will gain the tools and expertise needed to establish Denmark and Europe as an important player in the emerging field of carbon‑to‑value biotechnology, accelerating innovation in the field of circular and competitive bioeconomy.

“DTU has a history of driving innovation from the lab to commercial deployment. Our new partnership with LanzaTech emphasizes our commitment to accelerate bio-solutions innovation for the benefit of Denmark, Europe and beyond,” says DTU provost, Christine Nellemann.

 

From carbon emissions to sustainable products

The new biofoundry will use gas fermentation, in which microbes convert CO₂, CO, and methane into fuels, chemicals, and materials. The technology is emerging as a key pathway for reducing industrial emissions and enabling circular, climate‑positive solutions. Engineering these specialized microbes is, however, difficult, requiring advanced automation, AI, robotics, gas‑handling and high‑throughput strain‑development tools.

“This partnership brings unique capabilities to Denmark and accelerates our ambition to turn carbon emissions into valuable products. Working with LanzaTech strengthens our ability to drive sustainable innovation with real impact,” says Luuk van der Wielen, Director of BRIGHT.

LanzaTech has spent more than 15 years developing world‑leading synthetic biology capabilities for carbon‑fixing, gas‑fermenting organisms, including the first dedicated biofoundry for these challenging microbes. LanzaTech’s unique biofoundry solution is purpose-built for non-model organisms with highly customized anaerobic and gas-handling capabilities and advanced workflows validated through many years of operation.

“We are delighted to partner with BRIGHT, whose vision, expertise, and commitment to transformative research make them the ideal partner for LanzaTech. This marks a significant milestone in our transformation. By creating a dedicated team that consolidates our biotechnology know-how, we can focus the broader team on our commitment to delivering commercial sustainable aviation fuel and biorefining projects,” says LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren.

Under the new agreement, a LanzaTech team will develop tailored methods and workflows for BRIGHT’s research missions, provide a non‑exclusive license to relevant IP for tools and biofoundry workflows, and design and install a customized C1 biofoundry at DTU.

 

FACTS

Why this partnership matters

Recent advances in C1 biofoundry design at LanzaTech have created new opportunities to develop production strains more efficiently, enabling conversion of CO, CO₂ and methane off‑gases into valuable fuels, chemicals and materials. Access to these capabilities is currently limited, slowing research and technology development worldwide.

Establishing a next‑generation C1 biofoundry at BRIGHT will close this gap and create a shared platform for researchers, partners and innovation activities in Denmark and across Europe.

A C1 biofoundry specialized in microbes that utilize C1 gases will enable:

• Faster strain development cycles
  Automation and parallelization allow thousands of microbial designs to be generated and tested at once.
• Reduced innovation risk
  High‑throughput workflows enable testing many more variants, helping teams fail faster and optimize sooner.
• Integration of AI‑driven design tools
  Data from large-scale strain screening feeds into models that guide the next design cycle, accelerating the Design–Build–Test–Learn loop.
• Safe, high‑precision research on challenging organisms
  Working with non-model, often anaerobic microbes — and with flammable or toxic gases — requires specialized equipment and know‑how.

 

Biofoundry Outside. Photo: BRIGHT.

Credit

BRIGHT

About BRIGHT

BRIGHT is a research center at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) focused on enabling transformative research and innovation for a circular and competitive bioeconomy. Through cutting‑edge science, leading research infrastructure, interdisciplinary collaboration, and strong industry partnerships, BRIGHT develops next‑generation biological solutions for foods, materials, and chemicals.

https://bright.dtu.dk/

About LanzaTech

LanzaTech is a global leader in gas fermentation and carbon recycling. With over 15 years of experience engineering carbon‑fixing microbes and operating the world’s first biofoundry for gas‑fermenting organisms, the company develops technologies that turn waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials.

https://lanzatech.com/

 

Telemedicine has not led to increased use of medical care or higher health care costs

The findings could ease concerns that the expansion of telemedicine would trigger spikes in usage and the nation’s already high health care costs

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

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New UCLA-led research finds that use of telemedicine has not significantly increased visits and medical spending across all payer types.

The findings, to be published May 11 in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, could ease concerns among lawmakers that the telemedicine expansion that occurred during the COVID pandemic would result in large utilization and spending increases.

With the declaration of the COVID pandemic in 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) changed key policies regarding telemedicine flexibility, such as introducing payment parity with in-person visits, waiving geographic restrictions, and eliminating out-of-pocket cost sharing. Once the pandemic was declared over, however, lawmakers extended these changes to analyze how telemedicine impacted healthcare use and spending. Those CMS flexibilities are due to expire in 2027, and lawmakers continue to debate whether to permanently extend or modify them.

While supporters had hoped that the new, wider availability of telemedicine would reach people without easy access to doctors, others were concerned that the new flexibility would increase its use and drive up healthcare costs, said study lead Dr. John N. Mafi, associate professor-in-residence of medicine, division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

“Our findings suggest neither prediction came true on a national scale,” Mafi said. “As telemedicine use grew, visits and spending in heavy users tracked closely with patterns in lighter users. That is reassuring for anyone worried about ballooning costs, but more sobering for anyone hoping telemedicine would close longstanding gaps in access. At least so far, it looks more like a substitute for in-person care than a true expansion of it.”

Previous research has raised the possibility that telemedicine could worsen health disparities, and others have found geographic differences in telemedicine use. In addition, a previous study published in JAMA and led by UCLA found that Americans’ use of common outpatient health services dipped sharply at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, then rebounded to near-normal levels by the end of 2020, only to decline again during the second surge in January–February 2021. This study prompted the researchers to examine the effect of telemedicine’s adoption among different population groups.

With these questions in mind, the researchers sought to quantify the association between telemedicine use, visits and health spending. They used multi-payer medical claims data from MedInsight’s database for more than 3 million US adults who were continuously enrolled in Medicare fee-for-service, Medicare Advantage, dual-eligible Medicaid or commercial insurance from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2023.

Overall, the researchers found that telemedicine visits fell 2.4% and spending dropped 0.5%. However, the findings “crossed the null,” meaning that these changes were not statistically significant over the time period covered. In other words, the authors cannot rule out that the changes observed could simply be due to chance. Importantly, while the confidence intervals could not rule out small changes in either direction, they did rule out large ones, indicating that any true effect on overall visits or spending was modest at most.

They also did not find any significant changes across the subgroups they examined. For example, urban populations had 4.4% fewer visits and 2.3% lower spending, 2.5% lower spending among Medicaid-insured people, 5.3% lower spending among dual-eligible individuals, 3% less spending among those with Medicare Advantage, and 1.5% lower spending among socially vulnerable populations, but none of these changes were statistically significant.

They also found there were 3.4% more visits and 3.8% higher spending in rural areas, 1.1% more spending among commercially insured patients, 1% more expenses among people with Medicare fee-for-service insurance, and 4.5% higher spending among people who were the least socially vulnerable, but again, none of these changes were statistically significant.

Among the study’s limitations, aggregated results may not apply to individuals, the results may not apply to the entire country or to people who lack insurance, and the study design could not lead to any causal inferences.

Senior author Dr. Katherine Kahn, distinguished professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior natural scientist at RAND, said the findings should be viewed as an early read on a still-evolving policy.

“Our analysis runs only through late 2023, when telemedicine use was still settling into a new equilibrium,” Kahn said. “Much more work is needed to understand telemedicine’s longer-term effects on quality of care, health outcomes, and spending, and whether those effects differ across the diverse populations who depend on it. Policymakers should keep monitoring closely as the evidence base matures.”

Study co-authors are Sitaram Vangala, Manying Cui, Artem Romanov, Ziyi Li, Chi-Hong Tseng, and Dr. Catherine Sarkisian of UCLA; Jonathan Cantor and Cheryl Damberg of RAND; Melody Craff, Dale Skinner, and Michael Hadfield of MedInsight, Milliman Inc.; Michelle Rockwell of Virginia Tech, and Dr. A. Mark Fendrick of University of Michigan. Mafi and Kahn are also affiliated with RAND

Arnold Ventures funded this study with additional support from the National Institutes of Health and a National Institute on Aging research Career Development award (K76AG064392-01A1).

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.11835 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Telemedicine Adoption, US Ambulatory Visits, and Total Medical Spending, 2019-2023

Article Publication Date

11-May-2026

Telemedicine adoption, US ambulatory visits, and total medical spending, 2019-2023

JAMA Network Open

About The Study:

 Nationwide telemedicine adoption was not significantly associated with changes in visits or spending, either overall or when stratified by urbanicity, payer type, or area-level social vulnerability, thus easing concerns about large utilization and spending increases from telemedicine expansion.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, John N. Mafi, MD, MPH, email jmafi@mednet.ucla.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.11835)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open