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Intimate social relationships improve individual health and longevity, an effect which is supposed to be mediated through stress-sensitive endocrine and immune mechanisms in response to positive interaction behavior. On a neuroendocrine level, oxytocin (OT) buffers stress responses, modulates social attachment behavior and has been associated with cytokine expression. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to investigate instructed positive couple interaction, observed behavior, and OT in their effect on immune function.In a 4-group design, 80 healthy couples (N = 160 individuals) received four standard dermal suction blister wounds and were randomized to instructed positive interaction/control and intranasal OT/placebo. Unstimulated cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α) were assessed from wound liquid at 40 min, 105 min and 24 hrs after wounding.Overall, group assignment did not affect friendly or dominant behavior during the interaction sequence. IL-1β and IL-6 levels, however, were moderated by group assignment with lowest levels in women in the positive interaction and OT condition in IL-1 and highest levels in IL-6. TNF-α responses to wounding were not affected from group assignment, however observed friendliness in women was associated with lower TNF-α levels.These findings support the immune-regulating role of friendly behavior in romantic couples. Above this, the data provide the first empirical evidence that an intervention that simultaneously targets neuroendocrine mediators and behavior could affect immune function in a sex specific manner and with potential long-term health relevance.

Channel Reciprocity-based Key Generation (CRKG) exploits reciprocal channel randomness to establish shared secret keys between wireless terminals. This new security technique is expected to complement existing cryptographic techniques for secret key distribution of future wireless networks. In this paper, we present a new attack, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) jamming, and show that an attacker can prevent legitimate users from agreeing on the same key by deploying a malicious RIS to break channel reciprocity. Specifically, we elaborate on three examples to implement the RIS jamming attack: Using active nonreciprocal circuits, performing time-varying controls, and reducing the signal-to-noise ratio. The attack effect is then studied by formulating the secret key rate with a relationship to the deployment of RIS. To resist such RIS jamming attacks, we propose a countermeasure that exploits wideband signals for multipath separation. The malicious RIS path is distinguished from all separated channel paths, and thus the countermeasure is referred to as contaminated path removal-based CRKG(CRP-CRKG). We present simulation results, showing that legitimate users under RIS jamming are still able to generate secret keys from the remaining paths. We also experimentally demonstrate the RIS jamming attack by using commodity Wi-Fi devices in conjunction with a fabricated RIS prototype. In our experiments, we were able to increase the average bit disagreement ratio (BDR) of raw secret keys by 20%. Further, we successfully demonstrate the proposed CRP-CRKG countermeasure to tackle RIS jamming in wideband systems as long as the source of randomness and the RIS propagation paths are separable., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures

Refonfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) have been idenitified as a potential ingredient to enhance the performance of contemporary wireless communication and sensing systems. Yet, most of the existing devices are either costly or not available for reproduction. To close this gap, a Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface for the frequency range of 5 GHz WiFi is presented in this work. We describe the designed unit cell, which is optimized for the full frequency range of 5.15 to 5.875 GHz. Standard FR4 substrate is used for cost optimization. The measured reflection coefficient of a rectangular RIS prototype with 256 elements is used for RF performance evaluation. Fabrication data and firmware source code are made open source, which makes RIS more available in real measurement setups.

In this project, we want to test the reliability and validity (convergent, discriminant, and incremental) of a new indirect measure of prosociality, the Prosociality Attribution Task (PAT). In the PAT, participants are introduced to everyday situations (30 in total) and four possible conclusions that can be drawn from these situations. Participants are told that this test measures their reasoning ability and that they should select the most logical conclusion. Half of the items are distractor items (up to three conclusions are logical, the remaining conclusions are illogical), the other half are target items (one conclusion involves a prosocial attribution, one conclusion involves an egoistic attribution, two conclusions are illogical). A prosociality score is calculated from the PAT by summing up all selected conclusions involving a prosocial attribution, subtracted by all conclusions involving an egoistic attribution.

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) are a key enabler of various new applications in 6G smart radio environments. By utilizing an RIS prototype system, this paper aims to enhance self-interference (SI) cancellation for in-band full-duplex (FD) communication systems. SI suppression is a crucial requirement for FD communication as the SI severely limits the performance of a node by shadowing the received signal from a distant node with its own transmit signal. To this end, we propose to assist SI cancellation by exploiting an RIS to form a suitable cancellation signal in the analog domain. Building upon a 256-element RIS prototype, we present results of RIS-assisted SI cancellation from a practical testbed. Given an initial analog isolation of 44 dB provided by the antenna design, we are able to cancel the leaked signal by an additional 59 dB in the narrowband case, resulting in an overall SI suppression of 103 dB without additional digital cancellation. The presented case study shows promising performance to build an FD communication system on this foundation., 6 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2022

Although most people in romantic relationships cosleep, biosocial modulators of sleep quality have only recently come into focus. Oxytocin (OT) might be one such modulator, as it had been shown to increase social attachment and safety. We investigated the association between everyday life couple interaction and sleep quality, as well as the effects of OT on this association.Eighty heterosexual couples ( N = 160 individuals, mean [standard deviation] age = 28 [5] years) were randomized to self-administer a) 32 international units of intranasal OT or b) placebo during 5 consecutive days. Each morning, they reported on sleep quality, and on subjective feelings of closeness and valence of couple interaction at a maximum of four times a day. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear models.Subjective closeness ( B = 0.43, t (73) = 3.80, p.001) and valence (negative - positive) of couple interaction ( B = 0.50, t (73) = 3.91, p.001) were positively associated with sleep quality. Persons with OT reported higher levels of sleep quality than those without ( B = 0.47, t (74) = 2.32, p = .023). The association between closeness and sleep quality was stronger with OT than without (OT by closeness: B = 0.31, t (72) = 2.29, p = .025; OT by valence of interaction: B = 0.27, t (72) = 1.77, p = .081). Whereas the effect of couple interaction on sleep quality was strong in men, the OT effects were especially pronounced in women.Our results suggest that enhancing closeness and positive couple interaction in cosleeping partners might be a way to improve sleep quality. The moderating effects of OT and sex on the association between couple interaction and sleep quality can have important implications for sleep therapy.Trial Registration: The study was preregistered at ClinicalTrials.gov ("Oxytocin, Couple Interaction, and Wound Healing" study, identifier NCT01594775). The present analyses were not preregistered.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221110136 for A Self-Controlled Mind Is Reflected by Stable Mental Processing by Tobias Kleinert, Kyle Nash, Josh Leota, Thomas Koenig, Markus Heinrichs and Bastian Schiller in Psychological Science

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221110136 for A Self-Controlled Mind Is Reflected by Stable Mental Processing by Tobias Kleinert, Kyle Nash, Josh Leota, Thomas Koenig, Markus Heinrichs and Bastian Schiller in Psychological Science

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-eab-10.1177_00139165211036991 for Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Nationwide Lockdown on Mental Health, Environmental Concern, and Prejudice Against Other Social Groups by Bastian Schiller, Daniel Tönsing, Tobias Kleinert, Robert Böhm and Markus Heinrichs in Environment and Behavior

In recent years, the study of self-consciousness from neuroscience and psychobiological perspectives has flourished rapidly. The understanding of the brain areas involved in self-consciousness and the complex intertwining of self-consciousness levels has expanded greatly, and the awareness of neurotransmitter influence on self-consciousness has begun to emerge. Despite this, the neuropeptidergic influences on self-consciousness have been largely ignored However, recent studies of the neuropeptide oxytocin have yielded promising results that further our understanding of the psychobiological foundations of self-consciousness. Here, we argue that the oxytocinergic system plays a role in modulating several levels of self-consciousness, a conclusion that is usually underscored in interpretations of previous studies.

OBJECTIVE: Most studies focusing on risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have used retrospective study designs. Only a small number of studies have prospectively examined risk factors in the immediate aftermath of trauma exposure in predicting PTSD symptoms. The purpose of this study was to identify predictive risk factors for posttraumatic stress symptoms and comorbid psychopathological symptoms present during the time before exposure to traumatic stress in a high-risk population. METHOD: Forty-three professional firefighters were assessed immediately after basic training (baseline) and at 6, 9, 12, and 24 months after entry into firefighter service. Subjects were screened for psychopathological symptoms, including symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Subjects were also characterized with regard to personality traits such as self-efficacy, hostility, and alexithymia. Neuroendocrine activity was assessed by examination of awakening and diurnal salivary cortisol profiles and 24-hour urinary catecholamine excretion. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze posttraumatic stress symptoms at 24-month follow-up as a function of pretraumatic characteristics. RESULTS: A high level of hostility and a low level of self-efficacy at baseline accounted for 42% of the variance in posttraumatic stress symptoms after 2 years. Subjects who had both risk factors at baseline showed a significant increase in measures of PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety, general psychological morbidity, global symptom severity, and alexithymia during the 2-year period. Biological characteristics were not predictive of the development of psychopathological symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that specific personality traits may constitute markers of vulnerability to the development of psychopathological symptoms after trauma exposure. Early identification of preexisting risk factors is needed to provide effective prevention and intervention for individuals who are at risk of developing trauma-related disorders.

Whilst most research on breast-feeding has been designed to assess its importance for infant health or to find a human nutrient replacement for infant formula, the effects of breast-feeding on maternal health have received little scientific attention. In several animal studies lactation has been shown to be associated with a marked blunting of physiological and behavioral responses to physical and psychological stress. However, the literature on the effects of lactation on stress in humans remains limited. This review focuses primarily on recent findings on the effects of breast-feeding on neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to acute stress exposure in lactating women. The available data suggest that breast-feeding suppresses the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response to physical and psychosocial stress. However, lactation in women, in contrast to lactating rats, does not seem to result in a general restraint of the endocrine stress response during the whole period of lactation. Recent data strongly suggest that the blunted HPA axis response to stress in women seems to be counterbalanced if the acute stressor, at least when of a psychosocial nature, occurs later than 1 h after suckling. Further elucidation of the underlying psychobiological mechanisms involved in suppressed stress responses during lactation will no doubt lead to new insights into improved health sequelae of breast-feeding in women and to a better understanding of the psychobiology of human stress protection in general.

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 to psychosocial stress in humans. Methods In a placebo-controlled, double-blind study, 37 healthy men were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test. All participants were randomly assigned to receive intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) or placebo 50 min before stress, and either social support from their best friend during the preparation period or no social support. Results Salivary free cortisol levels were suppressed by social support in response to stress. Comparisons of pre- and poststress anxiety levels revealed an anxiolytic effect of oxytocin. More importantly, the combination of oxytocin and social support exhibited the lowest cortisol concentrations as well as increased calmness and decreased anxiety during stress. Conclusions Oxytocin seems to enhance the buffering effect of social support on stress responsiveness. These results concur with data from animal research suggesting an important role of oxytocin as an underlying biological mechanism for stress-protective effects of positive social interactions.