Prairie voles don't need 'love hormone' oxytocin to bond, study finds : Shots - Health News The hormone oxytocin plays a key role in long-term relationships.

Prairie voles have long been heralded as models of monogamy. Now, a study suggests that the “love hormone” once thought essential for their bonding — oxytocin — might not be so necessary ...

Other prairie-vole experiments that used drugs to futz with oxytocin receptors were performed in adult animals who grew up with the hormone, says Devanand Manoli, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist ...

A prairie vole couple. CREDIT: Nastacia Goodwin. Neuroscientists Devanand Manoli from University of California, ...

Many of those studies involved prairie voles, which mate for life and are frequently used to study human behavior. "Oxytocin might be 'love potion number nine,' but one through eight are still in play ...

Prairie voles are one of only a few monogamous mammalian species. After mating, they form lifelong partnerships known as "pair-bonds." Pair-bonded voles share parental responsibilities, prefer the ...

Using gene editing, researchers have engineered prairie voles with no oxytocin receptors. These monogamous mammals were thought to rely on oxytocin to form social bonds but new results suggest ...

The prairie vole is a small Midwestern rodent known for shacking up and settling down, a tendency that is rare among mammals. Mated pairs form bonds, share a nest and raise young together. In the ...

The source for this data may be surprising: prairie voles, tiny rodents that are among the small percentage of mammals that form monogamous pair bonds. By studying their brains when the voles were ...

Female prairie voles also showed increased bonding-related brain activity, suggesting male ejaculation triggers a shared neural response between the mating apir. (Image credit: Aubrey Kelly) ...

When Monogamy Breaks Down Despite the benefits of monogamy, there are exceptions to the rule. In some species, ...

Chronic social defeat stress in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster): A preclinical model for the study of depression-related phenotypes. Journal of Affective Disorders , 2024; 351: 833 DOI: 10. ...