Oxytocin is a peptide molecule with a multitude of physiological and behavioral functions. Based on its association with reproduction, including social bonding, sexual behavior, birth and maternal behavior, oxytocin also has been called “the love hormone.” This presentation will examine parallels between the healing power of oxytocin and love. As described here, many myths and gaps in knowledge remain concerning oxytocin and love. A few of these are described and we hypothesize that the potential benefits of both love and oxytocin may be better understood in light of interactions with more ancient systems, including the autonomic nervous system, vasopressin and the immune system. Oxytocin is anti-inflammatory and is associated with comparatively recently evolved, social solutions to a variety of challenges necessary for mammalian survival and reproduction, which I am calling “sociostasis.” The shared functions of oxytocin, love and sociostasis have profound implications for health and longevity, including the prevention and treatment of excess inflammation and related disorders, especially those occurring in early life and during periods of chronic threat or disease.
The Origin of Love
Abstracts
Close relationships help us shape both our other social interactions as well as our internal physiology. Do these close relationships, also known as pair bonds, look and function similarly in species as diverse as titi monkeys, prairie voles, seahorses, and humans? How do negative experiences such as loss factor into, and perhaps strengthen, our close relationships? And what do we mean by luminance? The current talk will explore these topics while also touching on the underlying neurobiology of pair bonding.
Humans are an intensely social species. We experience social interactions as rewarding from infancy, and the social cognitive skills that we develop in the context of our earliest interpersonal attachments are critical for our survival and personal wellbeing. Lack of social connection is common in many psychiatric and neurodevelopental disorders. In some disorders, like autism spectrum disorder, social cognition and social interaction impairments are the defining, core feature. Yet, despite the importance of social functioning in humans, our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms that regulate social behavior is limited. This talk will describe the roles of two neuropeptides, oxytocin and vasopressin, in the regulation of social behavior in animals, and how findings from this research are providing fundamental insights into human social disorders, with a particular focus on vasopressin and autism spectrum disorder.
The titis, and owl monkeys of South America live in socially-monogamous groups where the male and female establish a pair bond and share parental duties. Why do males of these species mate in a monogamous relationship presumably foregoing other reproductive opportunities? And why are titi and owl monkey males such good fathers, investing heavily in the care of offspring that they cannot be certain they sired? Relying on ecological, behavioral and genetic data collected during 28 years from wild populations in Argentina, Peru and Ecuador I will discuss the role of food distribution, mate guarding and infant care in the evolution of pair-bonds, monogamy and paternal care.
Grandmothers are important alloparents in many human families. According to one prominent hypothesis, the inclusive fitness benefits of grandmaternal caregiving selected for an extension of the human female lifespan up to decades beyond the cessation of reproduction – a developmental stage that is unique among primates. Beyond this extension of the lifespan, it is possible that grandmothers harbor other biological adaptations that prepare them for a special role in caregiving. In this talk, I present evidence from our lab showing that grandmothers have less DNA methylation of the gene that codes for the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) compared with non-grandmother control participants, and grandmothers with less OXTR DNA methylation tend to report more positive feelings between them and their grandchild. In addition, structural MRI brain scans show that grandmothers have a lower brain age compared with controls, and brain age tends to be lower among those grandmothers who report being more positively engaged with their grandchild. Given known neuroprotective effects of oxytocin, these results raise the possibility that the transition to grandmotherhood involves increases in oxytocin signaling that both facilitate grandmaternal bonding and attachment, and slow brain aging.
Dr. Theofanopoulou’s research focuses on unraveling the neural circuits underlying complex sensory-motor behaviors that drive social communication, particularly speech and dance, while exploring effective drug- and arts-based interventions for sensory-motor deficits commonly associated with brain disorders. In her lecture, she will discuss her brain imaging studies that identified overlapping regions in the primary motor cortex responsible for controlling muscles relevant to both speech and dance. At the genetic level, Dr. Theofanopoulou will present her spatial transcriptomic findings, which revealed an upregulation of the oxytocin gene pathway in critical regions for speech and dance, including the primary motor cortex and brainstem. To investigate the role of oxytocin in complex motor behaviors, she will share results from studies in zebra finches, Bengalese finches, white-rumped munias, and humans, demonstrating oxytocin’s involvement in vocal production. Additionally, she will explain the genomic tools she developed to translate her oxytocin findings across vertebrates, culminating in a proposal for a universal vertebrate gene nomenclature. Looking ahead to her current and future work, Dr. Theofanopoulou will introduce her clinical projects, which explore both drug-based (oxytocin) and arts-based (dance) therapies as promising treatments for speech and motor deficits observed in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.
Ancient texts warn us that love can quickly turn into hatred. We hear of Cain and Abel, Medea murder of her children, and “Et tu, Brute?” still rings the bitter sound of friendship turned betrayal. In this talk, I'll present our theoretical perspective on the neurobiology of hatred that is based on our model on the biology of human love and its three foundations; the oxytocin system, the attachment network in the brain, and biobehavioral synchrony, the process by which humans create a coupled biology through coordinated action. All three mature in mammals in the context of the mother-infant bonding and then transfer to enable life within social groups. During the transition from intimate bonds to social group living, they partition to support love and solidarity to one's group and fear and hatred toward the out-group based on minor variations in social behavior. On the basis of this model, we built the Tools of Dialogue© intervention for outgroup members and applied it to Israeli and Palestinian youth using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Before and after the 8-session intervention, we measured social behavior, political attitudes, hormones, and social brain functioning. Following the intervention, youth increased behavioral reciprocity and reduced hostile behavior during one-on-one interaction with outgroup, attenuated the neural marker of prejudice and increased their neural empathic response, reduced cortisol and elevated oxytocin, and adapted attitudes of compromise. These neural changes shaped their peacebuilding activity 7 years later, when they were young adults who can assume political and civic responsibilities. Our findings, the first to show long-term impact on brain of an intergroup intervention, show how social synchrony can tilt the neurobiology of hatred toward the pole of reciprocity and compromise.
Human fathers have a flexible psychobiological capacity to respond to committed parenting with shifts in hormones such as testosterone, prolactin, and oxytocin. Across non-human species that have evolved costly forms of paternal care, such hormonal shifts often help to mediate trade-offs between mating and parenting effort. These findings hint at evolved neuroendocrine capacities that help facilitate refocused priorities as men make the transition into fatherhood. Today, fathers commonly cooperate with mothers to raise children in societies around the world. However, their involvement and roles are variable, as they likely were evolutionarily. Thus, the nature of fathers’ hormonal shifts and their influences on behavior are shaped by the ecologies, cultural contexts, and family systems in which those fathering roles find expression. Bringing together these perspectives using data from my research in the Philippines, Congo-Brazzaville, and the U.S. along with other cross-cultural data, I will explore how men’s hormonal physiology variably responds to parenthood and relates to men’s family behaviors and bonds.
