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Oxytocin receptors OXTR rs53576 anyone?

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ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Gondwanaland said:
Of course this oxytocin story must involve other SNPs for the impact in your personality.
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Yes, indeed... There are lots of variables (including many SNPs) contributing to disease or personality, and, of course, there is environment and the choices we make... one of the surprising outcomes of the genome project is exactly those findings (ie, complexity of SNP interaction, epigenetics). The article below is just one of the places that I've read that... This guy is talking about diseases, but I think personality traits can have the same complexity. I agree w most of what he's saying, with one big exception: he is using the complexity of genetics as an argument against investing in "Precision Medicine" which I think is ridiculous.

ps re empathy "gene" - OF COURSE there are many other factors... I guess that does need to be explicitly said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/opinion/moonshot-medicine-will-let-us-down.html?_r=0
"But for most common diseases, hundreds of genetic risk variants with small effects have been identified, and it is hard to develop a clear picture of who is really at risk for what. This was actually one of the major and unexpected findings of the Human Genome Project. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was thought that a few genetic variants would be found to account for a lot of disease risk. But for widespread diseases like diabetes, heart disease and most cancers, no clear genetic story has emerged for a vast majority of cases."
 
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ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Gondwanaland said:
I think this SNP might be a big factor behind my social ineptitude, plus I never wanted to have children + I never felt energy enough to be able to raise children.
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I never wanted kids because i didn't want to pass my lousy genes on to them! Also, I never felt like I had the energy for kids, since fatigue is a such a big & persistent problem for me... I can't work AND have kids w my limitations. I don't know that this SNP is necessarily about wanting to nurture the next generation or not...
 
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ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Hip said:
So empathy I don't think is the same as social skills or emotional intelligence. I know people with excellent social skills, but these people are often not that high in terms of their empathetic abilities. Often I think sympathy is more useful and appropriate in most social situations than empathy.
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Yes, I don't think that empathy is the same as social skills or emotional intelligence.... For me, being empathetic is like having extra "channels" that I don't think a lot of other people have... Most of it is just noise that you have to constantly tune out... it's not necessarily anything that I care about.. Focusing on that is sometimes a distraction from interacting w someone... I feel like I'm on to liars and manipulators way faster than other people... All I want to do is get away from them, which can seem weird to other people before they've figured it out (IF they ever figure it out)... I wish I could manage it more easily.
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,873
ebethc said:
Yes, I don't think that empathy is the same as social skills or emotional intelligence.... For me, being empathetic is like having extra "channels" that I don't think a lot of other people have..
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Would you say that those extra channels also allow you to tune in to the zeitgeist (ie, the spirit of an era in time), and tune into the essence of a particular place or country?

I have been fortunate enough to live in a couple of different cities abroad, as well as in several different cities in the UK, and in each case, my mind seemed to naturally strive to imbue itself with the spirit of these places, absorbing the characteristics and fundamental essences of each city.

For me it was a really pleasure to do this; I definitely was not someone who wanted to carry my British or Londoner values with me; the very opposite: while I was there, I wanted to forget those values, and instead absorb and understand as much as I could about the essence of the country or locality I was in. The phrase "a sense of place" is sometimes used to denote this ability to perceive the unique signature or spirit of a place.

So I think empathy can apply as much to tuning in to the spirit of a time or a place, as it does to tuning in to other minds.

(I have to say, though, that these days, with the Internet and cable TV connecting the world, places are perhaps becoming a little more homogenized, so there may not be as much unique individual spirit at each location).
 
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ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Hip said:
Would you say that those extra channels also allow you to tune in to the zeitgeist (ie, the spirit of an era in time), and tune into the essence of a particular place or country?
Click to expand...

Absolutely! I was extremely drawn to San Francisco in the mid 90's... I moved here in '94 just before the whole internet took off... I can't explain why I was so compelled; it was pure instinct... I didn't have a job, I only knew 2 people (they both moved within a year of me showing up here). Tech was not as nearly as big as it is now - especially in San Francisco... (the epicenter is closer to San Jose, e.g., Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino).... It wasn't nearly as obvious a thing to do as it is now.... Lots of other examples.

When things go wrong, I can look back and say, I had a big intuition about this and I didn't follow it. It's not always that easy, though... My illness steals so much of my time and energy that I can't act on all my brainstorms.. I feel very, very lost right now... I'm really down about my illness, at a crossroads, and have no idea what to do...
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,873
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,873
Another factor that can increase empathetic skills is having bipolar disorder. Those with bipolar can have very high empathy and may be highly intuitive. See: Intuitive Empathy: An Explanation for some Bipolar Individuals?


I never realized that I likely have bipolar, until recent years. I could often relate to the descriptions of bipolar disorder, but because I did not have these periods of weeks / months on an elated high (the bipolar mania phase), nor did I have these lengthy periods of severe depression that occur in bipolar, I assumed that a bipolar diagnosis could not apply to me.

However, I then discovered that there is a form of bipolar called ultra-ultra rapid cycling bipolar, in which the ups and downs (the mania and depression) can cycle so rapidly that they occur within one day. This I what I think I have: nearly every day I would wake up feeling horribly, horribly dysphoric for the first three or four hours. The world could not look bleaker. But often by the evening I could be euphoric and very optimistic. Thus a diagnosis of ultra-ultra rapid cycling bipolar may well be applicable in my case.

So this bipolar diagnosis might also explain my empathetic disposition.
 
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