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Introducing oxytocin -

Although you might not know exactly what it is, you’ve probably heard of oxytocin. Otherwise known as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is the protein associated with empathy and trust.

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Where it's from -

Oxytocin is produced in the hypothalamus, from where it is transported to and secreted by the pituitary gland. It is known to serve a number of functions.

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What it does -

In females, for example, oxytocin plays an important role in reproductive functions, from sexual activity to childbirth and even breastfeeding.

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What it does -

In both sexes it has social functions, and for a long time scientists believed that oxytocin was directly responsible for pro-social behavior.

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The love hormone -

The traditional school of thought is that the release of oxytocin triggers feelings of empathy, trust, and what we think of as “love” in human beings.

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Changing picture -

Research is beginning to show, however, that this may be an oversimplification and that oxytocin might not simply cause pro-social behavior.

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New ideas -

Some scientists now think that oxytocin simply sharpens the perception of social cues, so that we can learn to target our social behavior more accurately.

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Testing -

This line of thought has emerged thanks to a number of studies carried out with mice and other laboratory animals.

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Verbatim -

To quote Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist at John Hopkins University, "It turns out it’s not as simple and straightforward as 'oxytocin equals love.'"

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Scientific advancement -

In recent years, advances in neuroscience techniques have allowed researchers to observe more closely the neurons that produce oxytocin deep within the brain.

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Scientific advancement -

The improvement in research techniques has allowed scientists to assemble a picture of the way oxytocin works that is subtly different from ideas that have gone before.

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Smell center experiment -

For example, one experiment conducted on rats showed that oxytocin inhibits the random and noisy firing of nerve cells in the smell centers of their brains.

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Smell center experiment -

This means that if there is an actual odor to be picked up, its neural signals stand out more prominently due to the lack of distracting noise.

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The takeaway -

The takeaway from this experiment (which was, granted, conducted on rats and not humans) is that oxytocin may create an increased level of clarity in the brain.

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Helpful analogy -

Robert Froemke, a neuroscientist at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, has provided a helpful analogy to describe this clarifying effect in the brain.

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Helpful analogy -

He said, "I've got two little kids. Even two rooms away, air conditioner on, and I'm deep asleep, the baby starts crying and right away I'm awake and attending, full-pupil-dilated."

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The reward system -

According to Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, oxytocin also enhances the response of the brain’s reward system.

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The reward system -

The implication of this is that animals may be discouraged from seeking out new things in an environment, and instead focus on seeking rewards.

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Prairie voles -

In prairie voles, for example, this has been shown to facilitate pair-bonding. In a sense, the vole becomes addicted to their partner, because they are inherently rewarding.

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Different contexts -

If the role, then, of oxytocin is not to promote social behavior but rather to clarify social-related perceptions, the chemical might have different effects in different contexts.

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Maternal mice -

Indeed, experiments have shown this to be true in the social and antisocial behavior of maternal mice.

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Maternal mice -

While oxytocin has been shown to increase their feelings of maternal care, it has also been shown to increase their level of aggression towards strange and threatening mice.

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Oxytocin and autism -

This suggestion may have implications for the way in which oxytocin is currently used to treat autism.

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Oxytocin treatment -

For years, scientists have believed that oxytocin may improve autistic patients’ response to social cues, and some therapists use intranasal oxytocin sprays to treat their autistic patients.

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Changing minds -

However, a large clinical trial conducted recently showed that oxytocin treatments have no such demonstrable effect.

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Not suprising -

According to one scientist’s analysis, this is not surprising, since the trial did not take into account the context in which the patient received the treatment.

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Example -

For example, if the child is being picked on at school, the oxytocin may actually clarify and magnify the negative experience rather than make it any better.

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All in all -

It seems, then, that research is pushing scientists away from their traditional understanding of how oxytocin works.

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To remember -

However, it is important to remember that oxytocin is now the only factor involved in the experience we call “falling in love.”

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Falling in love? -

To quote Kozorovitskiy: “Is oxytocin one of the many modulators that is mediating all those changes? Absolutely. But can we pin it all on oxytocin? That's definitely an oversimplification."

Sources: (BBC) (Medical News Today)

See also: Love affairs that changed the course of history

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