Oxytocin
(OT) is a mammalian hormone that in women is released mainly after stimulation
of the nipples or distention of the vagina. It's produced by the
neurosecretary cells of the hypothalamus but is stored and secreted by the
posterior pituitary gland. OT has garnered a lot of attention over the years
because it’s referred to as the “Love Drug.”
Latest study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Duke
University researchers hooked up monkeys to a child-sized nebulizer, a gas mask
that sprayed the OT up their noses. Roughly two hours after inhaling OT,
monkeys increased the frequency of prosocial choices associated with reward to
another monkey when the alternative was to reward no one. OT also increased
attention to the recipient monkey as well as the time it took to render such a
decision.
Indeed
we need some way to evaluate long-term effects of OT before trying it out on
humans. In 2010, researchers in the Netherlands published a study in PNAS showed that OT has a
dark side, and that it may actually foster feelings of prejudice, and perhaps
even incite violence. OT may provoke a wide range of emotions and behaviors
related to social behavior and parenting, such as trusting collaborators,
feeling love, and compassion as well as attacking potential intruders and
competing with rivals.
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Chang,
S.W.C., Barter, J.W., Ebitz., R.B., Watson, K.K., & Platt, M.L. (2012). Inhaled
oxytocin amplifies both vicarious reinforcement and self reinforcement in
rhesus macaques (macaca mulatta). Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, Jan. 3. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1114621109
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