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http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/index.html

HORMONE INVOLVED IN REPRODUCTION
MAY HAVE ROLE IN THE MAINTENANCE
OF RELATIONSHIPS

UCSF



July 14, 1999

"The hormone best known for its role in inducing labor may influence our ability to bond with others, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

In a preliminary study, the hormone oxytocin was shown to be associated with the ability to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and healthy psychological boundaries with other people. The study appears in the July issue of Psychiatry.

"This is one of the first looks into the biological basis for human attachment and bonding," said Rebecca Turner, PhD, UCSF adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. "Our study indicates that oxytocin may be mediating emotional experiences in close relationships."

The study builds upon previous knowledge of the important role oxytocin plays in the reproductive life of mammals. The hormone facilitates nest building and pup retrieval in rats, acceptance of offspring in sheep, and the formation of adult pair-bonds in prairie voles. In humans, oxytocin stimulates milk ejection during lactation, uterine contraction during birth, and is released during sexual orgasm in both men and women.

Turner and her colleagues tested the idea that oxytocin is released in response to intense emotional states in addition to physical cues. Twenty-six non-lactating women between the ages of 23 and 35 were asked to recall and re-experience a past relationship event that caused them to feel a positive emotion, such as love or infatuation, and a negative emotion, such as loss or abandonment. Because massage done on rats had previously been shown to influence oxytocin levels, the participants also received a 15-minute Swedish massage of the neck and shoulders. Blood samples were taken before, during, and after each of the three events to measure baseline oxytocin levels in the bloodstream and any change.

The results, on average, were of borderline significance - relaxation massage caused oxytocin levels to rise slightly and recollection of a negative emotion caused oxytocin levels to fall slightly. Recollection of a positive emotion, on average, had no effect.

What surprised the researchers, however, was how differently each woman responded. Some participants showed substantial increases and decreases while others were largely unaffected.

"We decided to look at the interpersonal characteristics of individual women to see if there was a correlation with changes in their oxytocin levels," said Turner, who is also the director of Student Research at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alameda campus. "We found a significant difference between women who reported distress and anxiety in their relationships and women who were more secure in their relationships."

Different questionnaires, including the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems and the Adult Attachment Scale, were used to assess each woman's previous experiences with personal and close relationships. The results were significantly correlated with the recorded changes in bloodstream oxytocin levels.

Women whose oxytocin levels rose in response to massage and remembering a positive relationship reported having little difficulty setting appropriate boundaries, being alone, and trying too hard to please others. Women whose oxytocin levels fell in response to remembering a negative emotional relationship reported greater problems with experiencing anxiety in close relationships.

"It seems that having this hormone "available" during positive experiences, and not being depleted of it during negative experiences, is associated with well-being in relationships," said Turner.

In addition, women who were currently involved in a committed relationship experienced greater oxytocin increases in response to positive emotions than single women. The researchers speculate that a close, regular relationship may influence the responsiveness of the hormone, said Turner.

These preliminary findings bring up some intriguing questions, said Teresa McGuinness, MD, PhD, UCSF clinical psychiatry faculty member and co-author of the paper. Because oxytocin is released in men and women during sexual orgasm, it may be involved in adult bonding, said Turner. There is also speculation that in addition to facilitating lactation and the birthing process, the hormone facilitates the emotional bond between mother and child.

"Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense that during pregnancy and the postpartum, both a woman's body and her mind would be stimulated to nurture her child," said Turner.

Oxytocin may also play a role in the higher levels of depression and interpersonal stress seen in women, said Turner. According to most psychiatrists, women experience depression twice as often as men and tend to be more affected by relationship difficulties. Turner and her colleagues hope that their work on oxytocin will guide future research on the psychiatric conditions of men and women.

"Our results provide the groundwork for further studies looking at the way hormones may be affecting human attachment," said Turner. "We know that oxytocin is one of the hormones that can facilitate bonding in other animals, but this is the first step in exploring whether it plays a role in the emotional behavior of humans."

In addition to Turner and McGuinness, authors of the paper include Margaret Altemus, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College; Teresa Enos, PhD, a graduate of the California School of Professional Psychology; and Bruce Cooper, PhD, professor at the California School of Professional Psychology."




Oxytocin: refs
Oxytocin/trust
Cuddle hormone
The power of love
Oxytocin and voles
Oxytocin and drugs
Oxytocin: structure
Oxytocin and women
Oxytocin and estradiol
Oxytocin and addiction
Hyper-reactive HPA rats
The evolution of emotion
Oxytocin and social interaction
Oxytocin, addiction and the science of love

HOME
The biology of true love

BLTC Research
The brain in love
Sensualism . com
Entactogens . com
Wirehead Hedonism
The Good Drug Guide
The Hedonistic Imperative
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology
Critique of Huxley's Brave New World

http://www.oxytocin.org/

"...our genetically-enriched descendants may view us as little better than sociopaths. For with enlightened gene-therapy the role of, say, key receptor sub-types of the 'civilising neurotransmitter' serotonin, the 'hormone of love' oxytocin, and the 'chocolate amphetamine' phenylethylamine, can be radically enhanced. When naturally loved-up and blissful on a richer cocktail of biochemicals than anything accessible today, our post-human successors will be able, not just to love everyone, but to be perpetually in love with everyone as well. Whether we'll choose to exercise this option just because it's technically feasible is another question. Cynics may argue that the scenario of lifelong egoistic bliss is more plausible. It's been well said that when we're in love, we find it astonishing it's possible to love someone else so much - because normally we love each other so little. This indifference, or at best diffuse benevolence, to the rest of the world's population is easily taken for granted in a competitive consumerist society - or on the plains of the African savannah. Quasi-psychopathic callousness to our fellows is an ingredient of 'normal' archaic mental health. Yet our deficiencies in love are only another grim expression of selfish DNA. If humans had collectively shared the greater degree of genetic relatedness common to many of the social insects (haplodiploidy), then we might already "naturally" be able to love each other with greater enthusiasm. Sociobiologists would then explain why we all loved each other so deeply, not so little. Happily, in the future it will be possible to mimic, and then magnify out of all recognition, the kind of altruistic devotion to each other that might have arisen if were we all 100% genetically-related clones. Hints of a capacity for universal love can be glimpsed fleetingly today, most commonly on the empathogen 'hug-drug' MDMA (Ecstasy). But a predisposition towards loving each other to bits can also be genetically pre-programmed. This capacity can become innate. Empathetic bliss needn't be a drug-induced aberration. For if the right sort of psychochemical cocktail is automatically triggered whenever anyone one knows is present or recollected, then we can combine absolute, unconditional and uninhibited love for each other with a celebration of the diversity of genes, physiques and cultures. At present this prospect may seem some way off...."

ABSTRACT



THE MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF PARADISE
01 : 02 : 03 : 04 : 05 : 06 : 07 : 08 : 09 : 10 : 11 : 12 : 13
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Oxytocin Refs
and further reading

Serotonin
OXYTOCIN
BLTC Research
Sensualism . com
Entactogens . com
Wirehead Hedonism
The Good Drug Guide
The Hedonistic Imperative
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology
Critique of Huxley's Brave New World
Oxytocin, chemical addiction and the science of love