Hug the Monkey

The Monogamy Gene

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute found that variations in a gene for vasopressin correlate with monogamous tendencies. Vasopressin seems to influence some bonding behaviors in males; it's  influenced by testosterone; and it's also responsible for defensive and aggressive behaviors, often in defense of the mate and family.
According to Bloomberg Muse:

The researchers ran genetic tests on 2,186 participants in the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden and had them fill out a survey about the quality of their marriage. Men with a genetic variation scored significantly lower on a scale of partner bonding. One in three reported a crisis in their marriage within the past year, twice the number as those without the variation.

... Those whose husbands had one or two copies of the gene variation scored significantly lower on tests asking about their marriage quality than those without it.

Larry Young and Elizbeth Hammock of Emory University had found that variations in parts of the vasopressin gene, formerly considered "junk DNA", seemed to influence monogamy in the prairie vole. While this rodent is socially monogam0us, some individuals never mate. Hammock was able to breed non-monogamous prairie voles by selecting for this variation.

I heard Young present about this at a conference, and he was very cautious about extrapolating his vole work to humans. Paul Lichtenstein, a professor of genetic epidemiology at Karolinska, has kindly connected the dots for us humans.

True Love and Business

I've written several times about the interesting and revolutionary work Paul Zak is doing on oxytocin and its relationship to business and economic exchange. In short, Paul is in the process of proving that the virtues of generosity and trust are crucial for a thriving economy.

Earlier this morning, I had on my other hat: technology journalist. Researching Lotame, a company I'll include in a story about targeting online advertising, I came across this in a great blog post from the company's founder, Andy Monfried (right). He's talking about what companies can do to survive during these .. um .. difficult economic times:

9) rely less on email, and more on good old fashion people skills.  email is NOT people skills.

10) give way more love and good vibes than EVER. passion goes a long way in any business, and it's often under utilized - and, overlooked.

That's good advice for anyone in business at any time -- and maybe should go at the top of the list. Meeting face-to-face, looking into another person's eyes, shaking hands and sharing a beverage or a meal provide an opportunity to build trust, based on spurts of oxytocin from the hypothalamus combined with dopamine tickling the brain's reward centers. Trust and love are different points on the same neurochemical spectrum. When you love someone, you want good for them. And Andy is right, that kind of love impels each of you to help the other succeed.

I like the name of his blog, too: You Ain' Gonna Learn What You Don't Want to Know. So true.

Science vs. Religion (When It Comes to Love)

Some very heated discussion on the Ave Maria Gratia Plena blog following author Michelle's comments about oxytocin, bonding and premarital sex. It shows how attempts to understand how our biology affects our emotions gets mired in emotion.

In Why I disagree with promiscuity and fear for the FLDS kids that will be taught modern sex ed, she writes that she's worried that the children removed from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints camp will be taught modern society's ways, including acceptance of premarital sex. She goes on to make some statements about how the bonding effects of oxytocin following sex and orgasm can cloud a woman's judgment about a man.

I think she makes some very valid points; I do agree with this:

Ever wonder why so many women are "in love" with total losers and won't end the relationship? O-x-y-t-o-c-i-n...
~ This is why so many marriages fail when the couples have slept together before being wed: a woman that is chemically bonded to a man is in danger of settling for a husband that is totally not compatible with herself. She can't see this because she is trapped in a bond she probably knows nothing about. (When do they teach girls about oxytocin in sex ed classes??)

However, framing these ideas with this really tragic situation makes it a lot harder to examine what she says. As commenters rightly point out, surely the situation these women, and especially the very young girls who were married to older men who had multiple wives, were in a worse situation than someone who finds herself "bonded to a total loser."

Still, many comments accuse her of ranting and twisting science. One wrote,

You made the claim that a woman is bonded to her sexual partner against her will by oxytocin. That a woman falls in love with a "loser" because of oxytocin. You cannot ask me to offer counterproof until you offer some credible evidence - other than a reference to Wikipedia - to support your statements. Then you'll get your "argument".

I really wish it weren't so, but there is plenty of credible evidence that both men and women become bonded to their sex partners -- and women more so than men. I wish we humans were able to create new forms of relationships and new societies based on our ideals, not our biology. But we remain deeply influenced by our animal natures.

It's completely proven that men and women release oxytocin during  orgasm. Following are some studies that, taken together, make a very strong case that oxytocin creates the bond of human love, and that estrogen increases oxytocin's effects:

Bale, Tracy L.; Davis, Aline M.; Auger, Anthony P.; Dorsa, Daniel M.; and McCarthy, Margaret M. 2001. CNS Region-Specific Oxytocin Receptor Expression: Importance in Regulation of Anxiety and Sex Behavior. The Journal of Neuroscience 21(7):2546-2552.

Bales, Karen; Lewis-Reese, Antoniah; Pfeifer, Lisa; and Kramer, Kristin; and Carter, C. Sue. 2007. Early Experience Affects the Traits of Monogamy in a Sexually Dimorphic Manner. Developmental Psychobiology 49:335-342

Carter, C. Sue; DeVries, A.C.; and Getz, L.L. 1995. Physiological substrates of mammalian monogamy: the prairie vole model. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews 19(2): 303-14.

Carter, C. Sue. 2007. Sex differences in oxytocin and vasopressin: Implications for autism spectrum disorders? Behavioural Brain Research 176(1):170-86.

Chung, Wilson C. J.; De Vries, Geert J.; and Swaab, Dick F. 2002. Sexual Differentiation of the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis in Humans May Extend into Adulthood, The Journal of Neuroscience 22(3):1027–1033.

Cushing, B.S. and Carter, C.S. 1999. Prior Exposure To Oxytocin Mimics the Effects Of Social Contact and Facilitates Sexual Behaviour In Females. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 11(10):765–769.

Georgiadis, Janniko R.; Reinders, Simone A.A.T.; Van der Graaf, Ferdinand H.C.E.; Paans, Anne M.J.; Kortekaas, Rudie. 2007. Brain activation during human male ejaculation revisited. Neuroreport 18(6):553-557.

 

Young, Larry J. and Wang, Zuoxin, The neurobiology of pair bonding (Nature Neuroscience Vo. 7. No. 10, October 2004)

Zak, Paul J.; Kurzband, Robert; and Matzner, William T., Oxytocin is associated with human trustworthiness (Hormones and Behavior 48 (2005) 522 – 527)

 

Mommy Your Man or Have a Grown-Up Relationship

There used to be a popular T-shirt that read, "I wanted to have a baby, not marry one!"

In fact, women can easily fall into the trap of mothering their mates. First, women's higher levels of oxytocin make them prone to mothering behaviors. And, let's face it, men who grew up with mommies who took care of them sometimes have a difficult time transitioning to independent adulthood. Finally, many men seem to not care as much as the women in their lives about things like neatness and nutrition.

These factors make it all too easy to fall into mommying him: Picking up after him, reminding him to take care of himself, making doctors appointments for him, etc. According to this article on CNN Living, it's a really bad idea.

Babying the man in your life can mean two things, Tessina says: A. You've been spending too much time being mommy and may need a break from the kids, or B. You need more adult contact, whether it be a weekend away with the girls or a few hours at the mall while the kids are with a sitter.

Tessina says that normal nurturing -- cooking for him, massaging him, tending to him when he's sick -- can feel motherly if you're too controlling about it. "Instead, tell him what you'd like to do to help him, and ask him if he wants that kind of help. This evens the field and makes you equals," she says.

I would add that it can ruin your sex life and your whole relationship. All that oxytocin a woman generates can make sex with him seem unconsciously weird, and oxytocin is not the hormone of desire, it's the hormone of fulfilled desire, aka orgasm. An excess of oxytocin also can damp down the effects of his testosterone -- not a problem when he's a young bull, but increasingly an issue as he -- and the marriage -- ages.

Besides, who wants to make love to a baby?

Read the article for amazing stories of how far some women go.

Do You Mommy Your Husband?

Tend and Befriend during Hurricane Katrina

  Reunion Arena Relief Efforts 
  Originally uploaded by tonguetyed.

You were more likely to survive Hurricane Katrina if you had the benefit of a social network with other women, according to researchers at the University of Missouri.

According to the article,

Jacqueline Litt, associate professor and chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at MU, found that informal family and community networks coordinated by women are vital in emergency situations. More than 50 people were evacuated from New Orleans, La., through the efforts of two "core anchors," a 58-year-old woman and her daughter, who initiated communication and organization using established familial and social relationships.

Litt found that warnings from the government didn't carry as much weight with people as word of mouth from people they already knew and trusted. And women, who tend to be better at communicating and keeping in touch, were better at getting the word out and getting people to act in time.

This finding reflects a reaction to danger or stress that UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor dubbed "tend and befriend." According to Taylor, while men often go into fight-or-flight mode, women have evolved the tend and befriend strategy because it was more likely to ensure that the children would be safe or at least survive. If a mother stood up and fought -- and lost -- her child might be killed too. If the child wasn't killed, it could only survive if her kin or friend were willing to foster it.

Taylor thinks that oxytocin, the neurochemical of calm and bonding, might be at work in the tend-and-befriend survival strategy. Oxytocin is also the chemical of social connection, helping women to create and maintain the social networks that can help them and their children survive.

The example of these women during the hurricane is an excellent example of this survival mechanism in action.

Is Gay Love Different?

If you're interested in my scientifically informed hypotheses about how gay bonding is different and the same from the straight version, please check out my article on Scientific Blogging: Lesbian Bed Death Explained.

The Vasopressin Takeover

Evan of Two Puppies Enter, One Puppy Leaves posted a link to a BBC science podcast in which scientists explain that three years after the birth of a child, oxytocin receptors in the parents' brains wane, while vasopressin becomes more prevalent.

I don't have time to listen to the podcast or follow up on the journal articles right now, but according to his blog post, Lucy Vincent (neurobiologist at the French Scientific Research Center) and Dave Perrett (Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews) said that

after 12-18 months the infant becomes significantly less vulnerable (able to stand and perhaps throw off a bird or small animal attacking it), at which point only one parent would be necessary. And at that point, the oxytocin effect more or less ceases, yielding to increased vasopressin receptor activity- essentially a biochemical foundation for why people tend to “fall out of love” after a few years

I think maybe they were talking about the male brain, not the female's.

Motherhood and fatherhood both change a person's brain; changes in the mother's brain have been shown to be permanent in rats. However, oxytocin receptors, which become profuse during pregnancy, may disappear and/or become less sensitive.

Vasopressin, which is very closely related to oxytocin, may be more involved in male attachment, and lead to the expression of this attachment in protective behaviors. If you have the time, his post and the podcast are probably worth checking out.

Sex, Orgasm, Bonding and the Marital Blahs

Commenting on my post about how getting together with friends can provide a nice oxytocin boost that makes a woman happier in her marriage too, Dave said:

Over the years I have heard the importance of communicating, sharing non-sexual intimacy, supporting each other, etc., etc., but have rarely heard women openly say that sex is what bonds them to men. How about the more experienced couples (I don't want to say "older") - would most women who have been married 10, 20 years or more agree that sex is still the bonding element ? I believe it is, but do they ?

I think "ideally" is the operative word. Unfortunately, when it comes to sex and orgasm, the situation for women is far from ideal.

Orgasm can be problematic for women for several reasons. While this doesn't hold true for everyone, and I think our culture might be changing, many times:

Women are taught that sex is dirty or bad.

Women are not taught to get in touch with our bodies to learn what feels good, and what good sex should feel like.

Women are not taught to ask for what we want, in bed or out of it.

Pornography, as well as our soft-porn entertainment industry, portrays men and women as always sexually ready and available. Men can be really surprised, frustrated and bored  when a woman needs a lot of foreplay. I mean, we may be talking 20 or 30 minutes. How many men are, ahem, up for that?

Men get angry, annoyed, put off or insecure if women ask them to change what they're doing during sex, because  it makes them feel criticized.

Neither men nor women are taught anything about making love. We blunder through it at first, and often pick up bad habits.

Once a man and a woman become regular sex partners, it's not as *exciting*. So, the woman may actually need more foreplay or to be approached more slowly, while the man may feel he doesn't have to seduce her any longer.

As a man gets older, his erections may be less strong or less reliable. Our culture unfortunately expects men to be always ready sexually, so they feel shame if they don't get an erection right away. Instead of focusing on his partner and letting it happen or not, the man starts to focus more and more on his penis, making sex less and less pleasing for his partner.

So, a couple may start off with some bad sexual habits: He rushes things, she doesn't demand that he slow down, etc. Then,  after 10 or 15 years, when his testosterone dies down, sex begins to seem kind of pointless to her and she puts him off more and more.

They hopefully still will bond through sleeping together, hugging and other less sexual kinds of touching. We hear about couples who have sex into their 70s and 80s. I suspect they're the lucky minority.

I Missed Valentine's Day!

I mean, I had a very nice two-day celebration with Mike, so I didn't miss it personally. But I did get overwhelmed by the usual spate of oxytocin-related columns and news stories that happened last year and again this week, thanks to oxytocin's newly glamorous identity.

At least six news stories followed the same train of thought:

Attraction and love the result of neurochemicals ... adrenaline, dopamine important for attraction, oxytocin for connection. Etc.

Veronica Hendrix (at left) has the most readable version of the theme.  In The Undeniable Reaction to Attraction, she starts with a fun anecdote before examining the triggers that cause this neurochemical chain reaction to begin. She writes,

"The sequence of attraction, according to researchers goes something like this: people are first induced by visual triggers, such as body language or physical attributes, which stimulates their interest; secondly, it’s the resonance of a person’s voice; then finally, the content of what person is actually saying seals the deal."

Sexual Monogamy Probably Doesn't Exist

The prairie voles are always touted as paragons of monogamy, ever since Sue Carter at the University of Illinois made headlines by "turning off" pair bonds in females by blocking the effects of oxytocin.

The idea is that in the brains of monogamous animals, including humans, oxytocin and dopamine interact in the brain's reward centers to create what's sometimes described as an addiction to the mate.

But Carter and her early collaborator, Larry Young of Emory University, constantly reiterate that the voles are socially monogamous. In other words, they live in stable families consisting of a mating pair -- that stays mated for life -- and virgin offspring. This doesn't stop them from extra-pair copulation.

I went to a seminar last year in which Young said that a very high percentage of male prairie voles never become monogamous.

Now, new research published in Nature showed that the prairie voles cheat a lot. Lead researcher Alexander Ophir quantified these extra-pair couplings, but found that it didn't have any effect on the vole couples' ability to successfully breed and raise offspring.