Egad! The villain has sprayed Gotham with a trust hormone and people rush to give him all their money. Banks close, shops close and city government collapses.

Farfetched? According to the Associated Press, Swiss and American scientists demonstrate in new experiments how a squirt of the hormone oxytocin stimulates trusting behavior in humans, and they acknowledge that the possibility of abuse can’t be ignored. Oxytocin is secreted in brain tissue. For years it was considered to be a straightforward reproductive hormone found in both sexes. Then, experiments showed it was involved in the biochemistry of a baby’s attachment to its mother.

In the experiments, the researchers tried to manipulate people’s trust by adding more oxytocin to their brains. They used a synthetic version in a nasal spray that was absorbed by mucous membranes and crossed the blood-brain barrier. Researchers say the dose was harmless and altered oxytocin levels only temporarily — and it caused “a substantial increase in trusting behavior.”

By George, could it be that all those mothers who trusted Michael Jackson to keep their children safe in his bed were victims of elevated oxytocin levels? Could this be why Hillary Clinton trusts Bill? Could this be why people are still watching infomercials and buying those ab machines?

If you think about it, there are probably lots of places where you can find people overproducing oxytocin. Any roundabout, for example, has no end of drivers who trust that no accident will befall them for ignoring the right-of-way. You’ll often spot oxytocin cases in parking lots. As a matter of fact, failing to spot them could result in serious legal bills.

These are the people who walk through the parking lot with their heads down, trusting that any and all drivers know exactly where they are. You will also find these people crossing streets with their heads down. These people must stay pretty close to home. I can’t imagine what would happen to them in the streets of Boston or New York City .

I don’t know about you, but looking both ways before crossing the street was drummed into my head as a child — look left, look right, look left again.

Was an excessive oxytocin release behind our trust that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that the United Nations could administer the Food for Oil program. I think not. Somewhere we have to draw the line between trust and fair play. Most American consumers, for example, don’t realize that Internet merchants and even traditional retailers sometimes charge different prices to different customers for the same products, according to a recent survey.

Yes, some online stores charge people different prices for the same products based on information collected about their shopping habits. The study, “Open to Exploitation,” found nearly two-thirds of adult Internet users believed incorrectly it was illegal to charge different people different prices, a practice retailers call “price customization.” More than two-thirds of people surveyed also said they believed online travel sites are required by law to offer the lowest airline prices possible.

In an informal survey at O’Hare International Airport of Southwest Airline boarding pass holders camping in line C, I was surprised to discover that sixteen out of nineteen participants said they believed they are already too trusting. None, however, remember ever having been sprayed. They just feel that their trusting nature is the result of natural overproduction.

On the brighter side, knowing more about how oxytocin works may have beneficial results. Some scientists say the new research raises important questions about oxytocin’s potential as a therapy for conditions like autism, in which trust is diminished. Or, perhaps the hormone’s activity could be reduced to treat more rare diseases, like Williams syndrome, in which children approach strangers fearlessly.

In the end, we must be able to trust one another. Many sociologists contend that trust is the glue of society and human interactions. Erase it, they say, and you compromise everything from love to trade and political order. We just have to hope that the scientists can figure out how much is enough.