The neurohormone oxytocin is well-known for promoting social bonds including trust, empathy, positive memories, processing of bonding cues, and positive communication and generating pleasurable feelings, for example from art, exercise, or intimacy. Now, researchers from Michigan State University show that in zebrafish and human cell cultures, oxytocin has yet another, unsuspected, function: it stimulates stem cells derived from the heart’s ...

    With the world’s elderly population expected to double by 2050, understanding cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 cause of death worldwide, is often highlighted and now University of Missouri researchers have identified an age-related cause of arterial dysfunction, a finding that could lead to future treatments. “Aging affects everyone and causes changes throughout our bodies,” said Erika Boerman, a ...