The hard science of oxytocin
Oxytocin has been of keen interest to neuroscientists since the 1970s, when studies started to show that it could drive maternal behaviour and social attachment in various species. Its involvement in a range of social behaviours, including monogamy in voles, mother–infant bonding in sheep, and even trust between humans, has earned it a reputation as the ‘hug hormone’. “People just concluded it was a bonding molecule, a cuddling hormone, and that’s the pervasive view in the popular press,” says Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has been studying the molecule since the 1990s.
That view has led some clinicians to try oxytocin as a treatment for psychiatric conditions such as autism spectrum disorder. But the early trials have had mixed results, and scientists are now seeking a deeper understanding of oxytocin and how it works in the brain. Researchers such as Froemke are showing that the hormone boosts neuronal signals in a way that could accentuate socially relevant input such as distress calls or possibly facial expressions. And clinical researchers are starting a wave of more ambitious trials to test whether oxytocin can help some types of autism. The work is leading to a more sophisticated view of the hormone and its complex effects on behaviour — one that will take many types of expertise to refine.
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