Psychosocial stress modulates social cognition and behavior in humans. One potentially mediating factor is cortisol as part of the human endocrine stress response. With a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subject study design, we tested possible dose-dependent effects of hydrocortisone (0 mg, 5 mg and 20 mg) in 85 healthy males. During a socio-economic decision-making task we measured trust, trustworthiness, sharing, punishment, and non-social risk behavior. Social value orientation (SVO) was also assessed. We observed significantly lower levels of punishment after hydrocortisone, especially in the 20 mg group. Drug-induced salivary cortisol correlated negatively with punishment behavior. None of the other facets of social behavior or the SVO were affected by hydrocortisone. Our results suggest that hydrocortisone reduces the propensity to punish unfair behavior. Future studies are needed to further disentangle the role played by various psychobiological mechanisms within the stress response as well as their complex interplay on social behavior and cognition.

Julia Strojny; Bernadette von Dawans; Hartmut Schächinger; Gregor Domes. Hydrocortisone reduces altruistic punishment in healthy men. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2024, 165, 107027 .

Julia Strojny, Bernadette von Dawans, Hartmut Schächinger, Gregor Domes. Hydrocortisone reduces altruistic punishment in healthy men. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2024; 165 ():107027.

Julia Strojny; Bernadette von Dawans; Hartmut Schächinger; Gregor Domes. 2024. "Hydrocortisone reduces altruistic punishment in healthy men." Psychoneuroendocrinology 165, no. : 107027.

Soil organic matter (SOM) plays a central role for both the C cycle and soil functions. Plants provide the input and heterotrophic (micro)organisms are essential for the turnover. Microbial metabolism links matter and energy fluxes and generates the highest energy turnover dynamics in SOM because the organisms need both energy and matter for maintenance and growth. In this perspectives paper, we evaluate the knowledge on thermodynamic approaches potentially applicable to study the turnover of organic matter in the soil system. Thermodynamics is essential for understanding organic matter turnover in soil as turnover and storage are controlled by the energy supply to, and consumption by, microbes. Instead of just comparing the heat of combustion of compounds without considering microbial anabolism, we need to apply conventional thermodynamic state variables that can be either estimated using established thermodynamic equations, or measured empirically in soil. In particular, we can follow and quantify overall changes of enthalpies by calorimetry. Here, we suggest to apply a thermodynamic concept with the related experimental approaches of calo(respiro)metry and turnover mass balances including biomass formation. This enables us to better interpret and understand the highly variable carbon use efficiency (CUE) in a multi-substrate system such as soil and to relate this to energy use efficiency (EUE). Combining the experimental measurements of the thermodynamic state variables with mass turnover data allow prediction of whether compounds can be metabolized with energy delivery to microorganisms, or be thermodynamically stabilized under the respective redox and electron acceptor conditions. Energy balancing shows how much energy is actually used and retained in the soil, how much is emitted as heat, and how much may be stabilized due to endergonic turnover reactions. Thermodynamic stabilization should therefore be considered as basic stabilization process for organic compounds in soil.

Matthias Kästner; Thomas Maskow; Anja Miltner; Marcel Lorenz; Sören Thiele-Bruhn. Assessing energy fluxes and carbon use in soil as controlled by microbial activity - A thermodynamic perspective A perspective paper. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 2024, 193 .

Matthias Kästner, Thomas Maskow, Anja Miltner, Marcel Lorenz, Sören Thiele-Bruhn. Assessing energy fluxes and carbon use in soil as controlled by microbial activity - A thermodynamic perspective A perspective paper. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 2024; 193 ():.

Matthias Kästner; Thomas Maskow; Anja Miltner; Marcel Lorenz; Sören Thiele-Bruhn. 2024. "Assessing energy fluxes and carbon use in soil as controlled by microbial activity - A thermodynamic perspective A perspective paper." Soil Biology and Biochemistry 193, no. : .

“That they all may be one” (Jn 17:21) … Does, after more than 2000 years of church history full of conflict and contestation, this famous prayer of Jesus not rather seem like a pipe dream that further broadens the gap between aspirations and reality? Is ecumenism just a utopian attempt to ‘uncrack’ the egg that has got broken more and more by each new church division? Or is there more to dissent, to conflict and contestation from a theological angle than just the alarmed hushing up of dissenting voices by streamlined, objection-shunning ecclesial authorities? Given the controversy stories of Jesus in the gospels, is contestation indeed an ‘extraordinary’ phenomenon not befitting a church that professes to be ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic’? Is it possible to make conflict and disagreement the point of departure for creative theological reflection and sturdy ecumenical progress? What are the fruits that might be harvested from acknowledging and creatively engaging with the Christian legacy of conflict? This presentation takes as its point of departure the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, when conflict was blazing up on different levels in theology, church, and state governance as well as society at large, at times resulting in physical aggression and religiously instigated violence and warfare. It cannot be denied that at the time conflict was playing a prominent role in the theological realm. Which are the theological lessons to be learnt today from this time of fierce conflict? As a result, the period of confessionalisation followed which led to clearly distinct ecclesial identities developing into the Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. Each of them had become a new delimited community. Although there were attempts at reconciliation at the time, the differences and contradictions prevailed and ecclesial unity in the West was lost. If we understand ecumenism as an attempt of the different churches involved to overcome the contradiction of their opposed communal identities, this helps with assessing the role of conflict and dissent among those churches. On the one hand, this interpretation explains why only the modern ecumenical movement as a broad attempt at ‘concerted action’ yielded some success, although it never achieved the goal of “visible unity”—as the Constitution of the World Council of Churches (WCC) actually formulates the primary purpose of the WCC as an ecumenical institution. On the other hand, this interpretation clarifies why the modern ecumenical movement can function as a laboratory for devising innovative hermeneutical instruments. These instruments are designed for coping with controversy and conflict as well as for enhancing unity. Particularly the ‘differentiated’ or ‘differentiating consensus’, a hermeneutical tool developed in the International Lutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue (since 1967) and for the first time fully fleshed out in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) merits closer analysis as an instrument to manage conflict and to harvest from dissent, but also as a tool to foster mutual understanding and enable encounter and cooperation between the two Christian World Communions involved. On the basis of the insights gained, the theological role of conflict and dissent becomes more clearly perceivable and it can be asked: how can conflicts become loci theologici, hallmarks of theological differentiation and discernment; how can they, by taking the shape of various forms of prophetic resistance, function as catalysts; and how can they have formative effects teaching to take seriously the differences of the other, but also to appreciate all the more the commonalities. If these points can be clarified sufficiently, conflict can enable true encounter, while an attitude is adopted that Pope Francis once labelled “the third way” to deal with conflict (EG 227).

Annemarie C. Mayer. Theological Perspectives of Conflict, Contestation and Community Formation from an Ecumenical Angle. 2024, 21 -36.

Annemarie C. Mayer. Theological Perspectives of Conflict, Contestation and Community Formation from an Ecumenical Angle. . 2024; ():21-36.

Annemarie C. Mayer. 2024. "Theological Perspectives of Conflict, Contestation and Community Formation from an Ecumenical Angle." , no. : 21-36.