Live Blogging from Psychiatry Grand Rounds: The Neurobiology of Social Bonds

I am sitting in a lecture by Larry Young PhD of the Yerkes Regional Primate Center here in Atlanta, GA. His research is on the neurobiology of social bonds. Since many of the readers of the Drug News and Health Safety News often wonder about how things that happened in early childhood affect how things go in later life I thought this would be of interest.

He studies an animal called the prairie vole (Microtus ochragaster), which is unusual amongst mammals for forming life long mating bonds, like humans (well, sometimes). Interesting, the meadow vole (Microtus montanus), a critter I studied as a med student that lives in the mountain meadows in the West, is genetically very similar to the prairie vole, differing only in having fewer brain receptors for the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin.

The meadow vole spends about half its time cuddling with its mate.

Don't forget to take out the garbage, honey.

 While the meadow vole, and the vast majority of other mammals, mates and then hits the road, spending most of its life alone.

70% of prairie voles who lose a partner never acquire another one. If they are separated from their partners, they show depressed like behavior, like floating in water with struggling, or being immobile in a maze.

Which doesn’t mean they never mate with other voles… they just come back to their wives.

All this raises the question… why did monogamy evolve in some animals? I have also been reading about this in a book called The Well Dressed Ape, by science writer Hannah Holmes.

Although not all animals are monogamous, all females show maternal behavior. This is regulated by the neuropeptide oxytocin, which induces labor, is released from the brain during nursing to promote milk release, and stimulates maternal bonding with pups. For instance, you can inject sheep with oxytocin and that facilitates them becoming dependent on their own lambs via oxytocin. You can also get sheep to bond with foreign lambs using oxytocin injection. Drugs that block oxytocin also block maternal behavior. You can get similar effects for pair bonding of mating voles. These oxytocin receptors are located in parts of the brain involved in emotion, like the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex.

For males, the neuropeptide vasopressin is more prominent. It is involved in aggression, male sexual behavior, territorial behavior, and paternal care. A variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a in humans is associated with a doubling in likelihood to have a marital crisis in last year, have a partner that is less satisfied, and to be less likely to marry.

Prairie voles raised by a bonded pair (that’s right, good ole mom and dad) have more attachment to their partners when they grow up and are more maternal than voles raised by single moms. They also have lower levels of oxytocin.

But don’t worry, there is a drug for everything. And it is… you guessed it! Oxytocin in a nasal spray called Liquid Trust! Their claim?

Liquid Trust Enhanced has been specially designed to give a boost to the dating and relationship area of your life. This upgraded formula still contains the same great Oxytocin formula, but now includes the powerful pheromones Androstenone and Androsterone.

So if you don’t feel ridiculous spraying this up your date’s nose, or your cheating husband, here you go.

Trust in a bottle