The Origin of Love

Sue Carter, Ph.D. is currently a Distinguished Research Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. She has held Professorships at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Maryland, College Park (where she was a Distinguished University Professor), and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Between 2014 and 2019 she was the Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute.

Dr. Carter’s research was integral to discovering the relationship between social behavior and oxytocin. Her current work in humans and other mammals examines the developmental and epigenetic consequences of oxytocin and the role of oxytocin pathways in selective sociality and the management of social isolation, stress and trauma. She was the first person to detect and define the endocrinology of social bonds through her research on the socially monogamous, prairie vole. These findings helped lay the foundation for ongoing studies of behavioral and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin and a deeper appreciation for the biological importance of relationships and sociostasis in human health and wellbeing.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ev3qjxwAAAAJ&hl=en

Pascal Gagneux is CARTA's Executive Co-Director, a Professor of Pathology and Anthropology, and the Department Chair of Anthropology at UC San Diego. He is interested in the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for generating and maintaining primate molecular diversity. The Gagneux laboratory studies cell-surface molecules in closely related primates species. His focus is on glycans, the oligosaccharides attached to glycolipids and glycoproteins of the surfaces of every cell and also secreted into the extra-cellular matrix. Gagneux's laboratory is exploring the roles of molecular diversity in protecting populations from pathogens as well as potential consequences for reproductive compatibility. Dr. Gagneux’s interest is in how glycan evolution is shaped by constraints from endogenous biochemistry and exogenous, pathogen-mediated natural selection, but could also have consequences for sexual selection. Dr. Gagneux has studied the behavioral ecology of wild chimpanzees in the Taï Forest, Ivory Coast, population genetics of West African chimpanzees, and differences in sialic acid biology between humans and great apes with special consideration of their differing pathogen regimes. In 2011, while Associate Director of CARTA, Dr. Gagneux helped to establish a graduate specialization in Anthropogeny at UC San Diego. This wholly unique graduate specialization is offered through eight participating graduate programs in the social and natural sciences at UC San Diego.

Professor Bales studies the physiology, neurobiology and development of social bonding, particularly in monogamous species. She works with prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), titi monkeys (Plecturocebus cupreus), and seahorses (Hippocampus erectus), all species in which males and females form pair-bonds, and males provide pre- or post-natal care for infants. In particular, she is interested in the role of neuropeptides such as oxytocin and vasopressin in these behaviors, as well as the effects of early experiences on the development of these behaviors. Her current research (funded by NIMH) focuses on the role of the kappa opioid and oxytocin system in social buffering and separation.

In addition to her academic appointments in Psychology as well as Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, Karen Bales is the interim director of the California National Primate Research Center. She is a past president of the American Society of Primatologists and the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Primatology.

Jess completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry at Richard Stockton College in 1997. As a graduate student, she had the unique experience of training with two professors, both well–established in the field of epigenetics. In 1997, she began her training in Dr. John Lucchesi’s lab, where she studied the epigenetic aspects of dosage compensation in Drosophila melanogaster. She moved to Stony Brook University in the summer of 1999 and completed her PhD in 2004 under the mentorship of a yeast epigeneticist, Dr. Rolf Sternglanz. Jess’s PhD thesis pursued her interest in the histone code by characterizing a domain (BAH domain) that resides within proteins involved in regulating transcription through chromatin compaction. Jess was a postdoc at the Duke Center for Human Genetics from 2004-2008. Her postdoctoral work allowed her to explore the fields of human genetics and genomics. She trained under Dr. Elizabeth Hauser, a human statistical geneticist, and Dr. Simon G. Gregory, a human genomicist. It was while working under the direction of Dr. Gregory that she began projects that focus on the methylation state of the oxytocin receptor.

Ruth Feldman, PhD is the Simms-Mann Professor of Developmental Social Neuroscience at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzlia with joint appointment at Yale Child Study Center.

With degrees in music composition (summa cum-laude), neuroscience (with honors), clinical psychology (with honors), and developmental psychology and psychopathology, her approach integrates perspectives from neuroscience, human development, philosophy, clinical practice, and the arts within an interpersonal frame and a behavior-based approach.  Her conceptual model on biobehavioral synchrony systematically describes how a lived experience within close relationships builds brain, creates relationships, confers resilience, and promotes creativity.  Her studies were the first to detail the role of oxytocin in the formation of human social bonds.

Her research is translational and informs the development of various interventions applied internationally.  Her observational tools are used in 17 countries, translated to multiple languages, and utilized in research on all facets of human social relationships in health and psychopathology.  She is a consultant on multiple international grants and a frequent keynote speaker in international conferences. Her studies often follow children from infancy to adulthood, address topics that are highly relevant to the general public, and receive substantial media attention.

Dr. Feldman is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and received multiple awards, including a young musician award, Rothschild award, NARSAD independent investigator award (twice), the Zeskind award for best paper in Biological Psychiatry, and the Graven’s Award for research on high-risk infants.

Highly Cited Researcher – 2018 – Web of Science. Among top 0.01% of scientists based on impact (PLOS Biology).

Expertscape World Expert in Parent-Child Relations, expertscape World Expert in Psychoanalytic Theory.

Dr. Feldman is the recipient of 2020 EMET prize, Israel’s highest prize in arts and sciences.

I am a biological anthropologist with a general interest in understanding the evolution and maintenance of social systems. My main research interest is to examine the mechanisms that maintain pair-living, sexual monogamy and biparental care and the role that sexual selection may have had in the evolution of them. I am also motivated to study living primates as an approach to understanding the evolution of human behavior. I am particularly interested in male-female relationships, pair bonding and paternal care in humans and non-human primates. You can read more about my research program in the Owl Monkey Project Website

Dr. Gettler is the Director of the Hormones, Health, and Human Behavior Laboratory at Notre Dame and a faculty affiliate of the Eck Institute for Global Health. Much of his early research focused on how men’s hormone physiology responds to major life transitions, such as marriage and fatherhood, and how men’s hormones relate to their behaviors as parents and partners. Working with collaborators at multiple global sites, he has expanded his focus to family systems and well being, including the psychobiology of motherhood and fatherhood, parents’ physical and mental health, and child growth, development, and physiology. Presently, Dr. Gettler works on research projects related to these interests in the United States, the Philippines, and the Republic of Congo.

Dr. Gettler has helped lead recent biocultural research on child growth and health in communities in Republic of the Congo. This work has focused primarily on the different roles that fathers play within families in two neighboring societies and whether higher quality fathering, based on locally-valued roles, is linked to better child outcomes. His future work aims to study how a transition away from traditional subsistence practices into regional and global market-based economies will change psychosocial experiences related to inequality and social networks, particularly as it relates to children’s stress-related physiology, including epigenetic profiles.

Gettler and Dr. Rahul Oka (ND anthropology), alongside current/former ND graduate students, also collaborate using biocultural perspectives to explore questions related to refugee and host community social relationships, economic dynamics, and health outcomes. They have particularly focused on questions related to social support and networks, psychosocial stress and mental well-being, and stress-related physiology. These projects draw on Oka’s ongoing fieldwork in Kenya as well as collaborative research with Dr. Jelena Jankovic-Rankovic on forced migration and refugees in Serbia.

Throughout his career, Gettler has also worked closely with his former ND colleague, Dr. James McKenna, on research focusing on mother-infant sleep and breastfeeding. McKenna and Gettler proposed the concept of “breastsleeping” to refer to the evolved, integrated suite of behaviors and biology linking mother-infant shared sleep and breastfeeding. Although not the primary focus of his research program, he maintains an interest on the role of fathers in the cosleeping environment and has recently begun collaborating on new research on sleep patterns, social environments, and physiology among BaYaka communities in the Republic of the Congo.

Gettler uses both evolutionary and social theoretical approaches to help contextualize his findings, providing insights into the ways in which human biology has been shaped by our evolutionary past as well as how it is responsive to cultural norms, family systems, political economic forces, and developmental experiences. Dr. Gettler's research has appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hormones and Behavior, Developmental Psychobiology, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, American Journal of Human Biology, Social Science & Medicine, American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Acta Paediatrica, Current Pediatric Reviews, and multiple other scholarly journals.

I am a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where I hold several departmental leadership positions. These include serving as Chair of the Major Laboratories Steering Committee and as Associate Chair for Research Strategy and Oversight. I also have a courtesy faculty appointment in Stanford’s Department of Comparative Medicine, and I am an affiliate scientist at the California National Primate Research Center.

At Stanford, I direct the Social Neurosciences Research Program. We seek to advance understanding of the biological basis of social functioning across a range of species and to translate these fundamental insights to drive diagnostic and treatment advances for patients with social impairment. My core research interests include: oxytocin and vasopressin signaling pathways, development of valid animal models for streamlined translation and clinical impact, and biomarker discovery and therapeutic testing in children on the autism spectrum.

I recently wrote an invited narrative review charting my scientific journey and detailing my personal and professional experiences in the field of social neuroscience. You can read it here. Briefly, I was born in Boulder, CO, and raised in suburban Chicago. I received my undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan. My interest in the biological mechanisms underlying social functioning emerged in Dr. Theresa Lee’s Biopsychology Laboratory and continues to meaningfully inform my own laboratory’s current research program. My dissertation research helped elucidate the critical roles of two neuropeptides, oxytocin, and vasopressin, in regulating social behavior in rodents. My research, which employed behavioral, pharmacological, and cellular techniques, demonstrated that release and specific receptor patterns of oxytocin and vasopressin in key brain areas of the extended neural amygdala pathway were required for the formation of social bonds and the development of paternal care.

My doctoral research on social bonds catalyzed my interest in how attachment relationships, and their disruption, influenced infant development and adult function. As a postdoctoral fellow, I traded studying meadow voles in the snowy Midwest for studying squirrel monkeys in sunny California, where I completed additional training with Dr. David Lyons and Dr. Alan Schatzberg at Stanford University. When I began my postdoctoral research, the prevailing view of psychiatry neuroscience was one of developmental neuropathology. As I learned more about this paradigm, I became interested in understanding what it failed to address: Identifying key factors that confer resilience, rather than vulnerability, to later stressors. To this end, I developed with my mentors the first monkey model of stress resilience and systematically characterized the complex behavioral and biological substrates of this phenotype.

Following my postdoctoral training, I was recruited into a faculty position at Stanford University. As a basic science researcher in a clinical department, I became interested in translating how the biological systems I was studying in animals might provide insight into the pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Since, I have initiated a series of interwoven studies to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying complex social functioning, both in novel monkey models and in people with social difficulties. For example, my research team is currently testing the efficacy of a new medication to improve social functioning in children on the autism spectrum, based on research findings from our animal work. (Please see the Parker Lab’s ongoing research studies and publications to learn more about our research program.)

When I am not writing grants or mentoring students in the laboratory, I enjoy traveling, cooking, hiking in the local redwood tree forests with my Australian shepherds, and spending time with my family.

James K. Rilling is a Professor of Psychology at Emory University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Rilling uses brain imaging, genetics and endocrine assays to investigate the biological bases of human social cognition and behavior, with a current focus on caregiving in fathers, grandmothers and dementia caregivers. Much of his research is examining the role of oxytocin signaling in human social cognition and behavior. His latest book is Father Nature: The Science of Paternal Potential (The MIT Press, 2024)

Constantina Theofanopoulou is the Herbert and Neil Singer Research Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University, Visiting Scholar at New York University, and Research Associate at Emory University and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. She is the Director of the Neurobiology of Social Communication team. Her research aim is to understand the neural circuits of complex sensory-motor behaviors that serve social communication, specifically, speech and dance, and to identify possible therapies for speech and motor disorders.

For her Ph.D. (Universal Ph.D. title: University of Barcelona, Duke University, and Rockefeller University), she worked on the social reward mechanisms of vocal learning, studying the role of oxytocin in vocal learning in songbirds and in human evolution of sociality, in general. These projects led her to realize that the evolution of the oxytocin/vasotocin gene family was largely misunderstood, an issue that percolated down to an inconsistent gene nomenclature. Using computational genomic tools, she shed light on the evolutionary history of these genes and proposed a universal gene nomenclature. This work laid the foundations for her current clinical project on testing the therapeutic role of oxytocin in speech deficits.