Researchers at the Weizman Institute of Science have found that love hormone – oxytocin, which acts as a social lubricant and spikes during orgasms, may have a less welcome effect, such as aggression and might have caused aggressive behaviour during the pandemic lockdown among many couples.
Oxytocin is secreted by the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure at the base of the brain. It’s sometimes known as the “cuddle hormone” or the “love hormone,” because it is released when people snuggle up or bond socially.
The study published in the journal Neuron shows that oxytocin sprays could enhance romantic relationships and help with marriage counselling.
According to the study, many manufacturers produce oxytocin sprays for big businesses online, with sellers claiming they improve sex life and boost both relationships and social interactions (though such assertions should be examined with a healthy dose of scepticism).
Meanwhile, there is also interest among some medical professionals in using the hormone for a variety of conditions, including social anxiety, autism and schizophrenia.
“We have seen that it is capable of stimulating behaviours we may not want to stimulate, such as aggression,” said Sergey Anpilov, who spent a week supervising 44 mice in a Big Brother-type social experiment in which they competed for food and all their social interactions were filmed and analysed.
Five times a day, Anpilov and his team would use special fibre optic devices mounted on the mice’s heads to alter the function of some of the subjects’ brains.
By turning on specific neurons, they would boost oxytocin levels. Those who weren’t given the oxytocin boost maintained relatively constant behaviour while those given the oxytocin boost underwent changes.
At first, the hormone indeed acted as the social lubricant it is widely thought to be. “The resident mice attacked less after having their oxytocin stimulated,” Anpilov said, adding that they also interacted with each other more. However, the effect was far from constant.
“On the first day, we saw social interaction was increased and they spent more time with each other, but on the second day they became more aggressive,” said Anpilov.
The mice were in small house-like structures in groups of four, with space to play and interact. Anpilov said that the social element was important as most oxytocin research hasn’t put mice in intense social settings.
Anpilov is now suggesting that oxytocin isn’t a hormone necessarily associated with love, but rather one that causes people and animals to react more intensely to situations — whether for better or worse.
“Oxytocin doesn’t take you in a specific direction, the direction it takes you in depends on the social situation,” he said, adding that when it has been boosted, social cues appear “amplified.”
Anpilov said that while more research is needed on the topic, the study may have important practical ramifications, specifically in the form of questioning the wisdom of giving oxytocin therapeutically to humans.
“If we assume that oxytocin does the same things in human as [it does in] mice, and we use it for social disorders, we may, in an unintentional manner, increase behaviours we don’t want”
Or in simpler terms: “It may backfire.
