A different line of evidence about oxytocin’s role in love comes from genetics. “With hormones you can say that maybe behavior created the hormone or the hormone created the behavior—we don’t know,” Feldman says. But a person’s genes are in place before any behavior can emerge, she notes.
A study published last year in Biological Psychiatry was the first to assess whether people with variations in their oxytocin-receptor gene have a harder time maintaining romantic relationships than those who don’t. Hasse Walum, a graduate student at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and his colleagues took advantage of Swedish twin studies that included thousands of participants, their genetic information and their answers to questions about how affectionate they were with their romantic partners. They found that women with a specific variation weren’t as close to their partners as women without it: they kissed their partners less and didn’t desire physical proximity as often. These women were also more likely to report having had a marital crisis. Although researchers don’t know exactly how this variation affects the oxytocin system, it may result in a lower number of oxytocin receptors in the brain. People with fewer receptors would be less sensitive to the hormone’s effects.
In a study that hasn’t been published yet, Feldman found that oxytocin receptor genes are also linked to empathy in couples. She looked at variants in the gene that have been linked with an increased risk for autism, a disorder that is marked by major social communication deficits. She found that the more of these “risk variants” a person had, the less empathy they showed toward their partner when that partner shared a distressing experience.
Oxytocin has been shown to help people with autism improve their ability to recognize emotion, and Wallum found that the same receptor variant that increases risk for marital crisis in women is linked to social problems in girls. These include trouble getting along with others and a preference for being alone. This and Feldman’s work on oxytocin’s importance for the mother–child bond suggests that the hormone is more involved in the communication component of love between couples than the romantic component of love.
Adam Guastella, a clinical psychologist at University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, and a pioneer in studies of how oxytocin can help people with autism, thinks the hormone can also help people in couple therapy by facilitating empathic communication. His research has shown that people who get oxytocin are more focused on positive emotion: they remember happy faces better than angry and neutral ones. Research by others has shown that oxytocin increases trust, generosity and our ability to identify emotion in facial expressions. It is perhaps by these mechanisms that the hormone improves communication.
Guastella and his team just completed an unpublished study that is the first to test the effects of oxytocin on couples in therapy. In one part of the study, couples were asked to discuss a “hot topic,” one that usually led to conflict between the pair, and to then try to solve the issue. Although the data analysis is still in progress, Guastella expects couples that got oxytocin to show less hostile interpretations of the problem and be less critical of their partners. He thinks overall it will increase perspective-taking and reduce blame, leading to smoother communication and better problem-solving.
How would that work? Feldman thinks that these types of behaviors are intimately linked with oxytocin in a positive feedback loop. “Oxytocin can elicit loving behaviors, but giving and receiving these behaviors also promotes the release of oxytocin and leads to more of these behaviors,” she says. She thinks that talk therapy alone can boost the oxytocin system, but admits that in some cases it might help to jump-start the feedback loop by administering oxytocin. If Guastella’s results support his hypothesis, talk and hormone therapy together might be the best recipe for breaking down dysfunctional communication between partners, especially in cases where the behaviors have been learned in childhood.
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Add CommentSo, now the question is: how do get more oxytocin?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy prescription.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStudies have suggested several ways of naturally creating an oxytocin response, including singing in a choir, playing with your dog, talking to you mom on the phone and taking care of an ailing spouse. Because the oxytocin response develops differently in different brains, your experience may vary. For example, if you're afraid of dogs or don't get along with your mom, you'll feel stressed (cortisol response). Orgasm is a reliable way to get a rush of oxytocin. Although these haven't been studied, probably any activity that brings you together with someone you trust will probably increase oxytocin: cuddling, hanging with a good friend, hugging, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe good news is that oxytocin is secreted by the hypothalamust and is stored in the posterior pituitary and released during (a) childbirth where it causes uterine contractions, and (b) during orgasm, as, um, pointed out above. Thus, it causes bonding and has branded "the cuddling" hormone. Hence, the good news. The bad news is that while the mother is in labor, if her partner accompanies her during the ordeal, his oxytocin level goes up, and, sadly, his testosterone goes down. Nature's way of preventing the new Dad from having a wandering eye. The trade name for oxytocin is Pitocin. Finally, in many species, oxytocin causes an amnesiac response, both for the pain of labor and for the odor and aroma of the first litter so that the new mom only suckles the newbies!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis raises a question 'how to maximize oxytocin ?', and more importantly, leaves the question unanswered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose who practice karezza sex know this secret.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen. The last line says it all. If there was nothing there initially (i.e. when the couple misunderstood one another's values at the get-go, or when neither partner knows what their values are), oxytocin is not going to help long term. And who ever said sticking together is a healthy thing for everyone? It's so crazy to simplify the situation of successful and peaceful relating to the one ingredient that helps us bond. What of the monogomous gene for example? I think Louanne Brizandine, MD. says only 17% of people have that gene.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, there is the subject of distinguishing the difference between what you want--desire--and what is actually healthy for you. These functions happen in different parts of the brain.
Having or at least garnering respect for one another entails empathetic listening...finding the other interesting and being truly curious about how they feel.
Carl Rogers Peer to Peer counseling technique is kind of a chaser to *shut up and listen*. Then Mindfulness techniques would teach that it's healthy to put off your wants to fulfill another's NEEDS and know when to do so....and know when to request the center stage (procure attention for yourself when you NEED it). In a rarely attached/bonded cultural base, this flexibility and discernment are rare.
Oxytocin sure is fun, but not the be-all, end-all. And it's not a constant. Pleasure seeking is not practically functional in all situations or typically maintained. Our chemistry vacillates moment to moment, as Candice Pert has tried to explain, and that is natural.
This culture would choose pleasurable oblivion to balance and it shows in our pharmaceutical and recreational drug proclivities.
Want good natural drugs coursing through you system? Get off your ass and exercise.
Pitocin also causes such deep contractions that make it harder for the baby to push through on her own, which increases the perceived NEED to perform ceasarean sections and episiotomies. We bow to the feet of the OBGYN; not the needs or practical concerns or psychological comfort/control of the mother. Quelle drag?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI predict that we will see, in the future, what might be called "life-enhancing nuero-chemical drugs." These drugs will modify behaviors in various ways to eliminate perceived ills as anger, selfishness, promiscuity, stupidity, introversion, ect. These substances are still many years, possibly decades away, but they, and the use of them, are plausible. We already have drugs to treat depression, which most of us can agree are much abused. Throughout the ages humans have been more than willing to use things like alcohol to modify their nuero-chemical states. And there are already many political ideologies based on modifying people's behavior. Liberals may want to use drugs to get rid of "greed" and "tribalism." Traditional conservatives might want to use these drugs to promote sexual morality. Libertarians might want to eliminate "stupidity" and "irresponsibility." Thus will be spawned a new word: nueropolitics, as politicians strive to ban the substances that offend their worldviews.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting article―and related commentaries. How to explain this behavioral oddity with a singular cause? One, Ronald Reagan, paired with Jane Wyman, some eight years endurance, and finally the “Oxytocin” expired. Subsequent alliance with Nancy, nee: Anne Frances Robbins, durability of relationship protracting into fifty-two years duration, muted only in eschatological separation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOxytocin … was it discriminately prejudicial … or imbalance the fragmenting experience of a teeter totter ride overloaded on one side?
In world population exceeding seven billion can one sapiently divine singular, or stochastic multiple cause for attachment’s proclivity?
Rhetorical muse.
So lets all take oxytocin together and mayby we can all learn to love one another. Make love, not babies, and doubly reduce the causes of war.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisarticle says for "couples therapy". this implies the drug creates monogamy! question what will it do for polygamous people?
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