Turning a decades-old dogma on its head, new research shows that the receptor for oxytocin, a hormone considered essential to forming social bonds, may not play the critical role that scientists have assigned to it for the past 30 years.
In the study, appearing in Neuron, the team found that prairie voles bred without receptors for oxytocin and showed the same monogamous mating, attachment, and parenting behaviors as regular voles. In addition, females without oxytocin receptors gave birth and produced milk, though in smaller quantities, than ordinary female voles.
The results indicate that the biology underlying pair bonding and parenting isn't purely dictated by the receptors for oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the “love hormone.”
“While oxytocin has been considered ‘Love Potion #9,’ it seems that potions 1 through 8 might be sufficient,” said a senior author of the paper. “This study tells us that oxytocin is likely just one part of a much more complex genetic program.”
Because prairie voles are one of the few mammalian species known to form lifelong monogamous relationships, researchers study them to better understand the biology of social bonding.
Studies in the 1990s using drugs that prevent oxytocin from binding to its receptor found that voles were unable to pair bond, giving rise to the idea that the hormone is essential to forming such attachments.
For this study, 15 years in the making, the researchers applied new genetic technologies to confirm if oxytocin binding to its receptor was indeed the factor behind pair bonding. They used CRISPR to generate prairie voles that lack functional oxytocin receptors. Then, they tested the mutant voles to see whether they could form enduring partnerships with other voles.
To the researchers’ surprise, the mutant voles formed pair bonds just as readily as normal voles.
“The patterns were indistinguishable,” said the author. “The major behavioral traits that were thought to be dependent on oxytocin – sexual partners huddling together and rejecting other potential partners as well as parenting by mothers and fathers – appear to be completely intact in the absence of its receptor.”
Even more surprising than the pair bonding was the fact that a significant percentage of the female voles were able to give birth and provide milk for their pups.
Oxytocin is likely to have a role in both birth and lactation, but one that is more nuanced than previously thought, the author said. Female voles without receptors proved perfectly capable of giving birth, on the same timeframe and in the same way as the regular animals, even though labor has been thought to rely on oxytocin.
The results help to clear up some of the mystery surrounding the hormone’s role in childbirth: Oxytocin is commonly used to induce labor but blocking its activity in mothers who experience premature labor isn’t better than other approaches for halting contractions.
When it came to producing milk and feeding pups, however, the researchers were taken aback. Oxytocin binding to its receptor has been considered essential for milk ejection and parental care for many decades, but half of the mutant females were able to nurse and wean their pups successfully, indicating that oxytocin signaling plays a role, but it is less vital than previously thought.
“This overturns conventional wisdom about lactation and oxytocin that’s existed for a much longer time than the pair bonding association,” said the other co-senior author. “It’s a standard in medical textbooks that the milk letdown reflex is mediated by the hormone, and here we are saying, ‘Wait a second, there’s more to it than that.’”
The researchers said their study strongly suggests that the current model – a single pathway or molecule being responsible for social attachment –is oversimplified. This conclusion makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, they said, given the importance of attachment to the perpetuation of many social species.
“These behaviors are too important to survival to hinge on this single point of potential failure,” said the author. “There are likely other pathways or other genetic wiring to allow for that behavior. Oxytocin receptor signaling could be one part of that program, but it’s not the be-all end-all.”
The discovery points the researchers down new paths to improving the lives of people struggling to find social connection.
“If we can find the key pathway that mediates attachment and bonding behavior,” the other co-senior author said, “We’ll have an eminently druggable target for alleviating symptoms in autism, schizophrenia, many other psychiatric disorders.”
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)01084-4
http://sciencemission.com/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=publications%2Foxytocin-receptor-is&filter=22
Removing the Oxytocin Receptor Does Not Interfere with Monogamy or Giving Birth
- 778 views
- Added
Latest News
How molecules in a cell int…
By newseditor
Posted 02 Dec
Genetic programmes underlie…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
APOE variant neurons releas…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Reducing vitamin B5 slows b…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Mouse brain is 'rewired' du…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Other Top Stories
Phosphorylation mechanism controlling tumor growth
Read more
Ovarian hormones awaken newly discovered breast stem cells
Read more
How breast cancer stem cells resist chemotherapy
Read more
Molecule stops fatal pediatric brain tumor
Read more
Breast cancer mutation in BRCA1 causes protein to self-destruct
Read more
Protocols
Temporally multiplexed imag…
By newseditor
Posted 02 Dec
Efficient elimination of ME…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Personalized drug screening…
By newseditor
Posted 30 Nov
Multi-chamber cardioids unr…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
Microfluidic-based skin-on-…
By newseditor
Posted 28 Nov
Publications
APOE4-promoted gliosis and…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Sensory neuronal STAT3 is c…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Vitamin B5 supports MYC onc…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Longitudinal evolution of d…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Pre-RNA splicing in metabol…
By newseditor
Posted 01 Dec
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
By newseditor
Posted 12 Apr
Lipids
By newseditor
Posted 31 Dec
Cell biology of carbohydrat…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
RNA interference (RNAi)
By newseditor
Posted 23 Oct
RNA structure and functions
By newseditor
Posted 19 Oct
Posters
A chemical biology/modular…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Aug
Single-molecule covalent ma…
By newseditor
Posted 04 Jul
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES R…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CAN…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar