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How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.

ABSTRACT: Humans belong to a minority of mammalian species that exhibit monogamous pair-bonds, thereby enabling biparental care of offspring. The high reward value of interpersonal closeness and touch in couples is a key proximate mechanism facilitating the maintenance of enduring romantic bonds. However, surprisingly, the neurobiological underpinnings mediating the unique experience of a romantic partner's touch remain unknown. In this randomized placebo (PLC)-controlled, between-group, pharmacofunctional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study involving 192 healthy volunteers (96 heterosexual couples), we intranasally administered 24 IU of the hypothalamic peptide oxytocin (OXT) to either the man or the woman. Subsequently, we scanned the subjects while they assumed that they were being touched by their romantic partners or by an unfamiliar person of the opposite sex, although in reality an identical pattern of touch was always given by the same experimenter. Our results show that intranasal OXT compared to PLC selectively enhanced the subjective pleasantness of the partner's touch. Importantly, intranasal OXT selectively increased responses to partner touch in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and anterior cingulate cortex. Under OXT, NAcc activations to partner touch positively correlated with the subjects' evaluation of their relationship quality. Collectively, our results suggest that OXT may contribute to the maintenance of monogamous relationships in humans by concomitantly increasing the reward value of partner touch and diminishing the hedonic quality of stranger touch. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4525-4534, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SUBMITTER: Kreuder AK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6867116 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.

Kreuder Ann-Kathrin AK Scheele Dirk D Wassermann Lea L Wollseifer Michael M Stoffel-Wagner Birgit B Lee Mary R MR Hennig Juergen J Maier Wolfgang W Hurlemann René R

Human brain mapping 20170605 9

Humans belong to a minority of mammalian species that exhibit monogamous pair-bonds, thereby enabling biparental care of offspring. The high reward value of interpersonal closeness and touch in couples is a key proximate mechanism facilitating the maintenance of enduring romantic bonds. However, surprisingly, the neurobiological underpinnings mediating the unique experience of a romantic partner's touch remain unknown. In this randomized placebo (PLC)-controlled, between-group, pharmacofunctiona ...[more]

PMID: 28580708

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Project description:IntroductionThe gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus) is an important nonhuman primate model in biomedical research. Numerous studies investigated mouse lemur behavior and possible factors underlying interindividual variation in both, animal personality and cognitive performance. Some effects, such as an age-related decline in executive functioning, have robustly been found across laboratory colonies; however, little is known about the brain structural substrates in mouse lemurs.MethodsHere, we provide first exploratory data linking in vivo magnetic resonance imaging of 34 mouse lemurs to performance in a standardized, touchscreen-based task on object discrimination and reversal learning as well as to animal personality under different scenarios in an open field.ResultsHigh interindividual variability in both brain morphometric and behavioral measurements was found, but only few significant correlations between brain structure and behavior were revealed: Object discrimination learning was linked to the volume of the hippocampus and to temporal lobe thickness, while reversal learning was linked to thalamic volume and the thickness of the anterior cingulate lobe. Emergence latency into the open field correlated with volume of the amygdala. General exploration-avoidance in the empty open-field arena correlated with thicknesses of the anterior cingulate lobe and fronto-parietal substructures. Neophilia, assessed as exploration of a novel object placed in the arena, among others, related to the volume of the caudate nucleus.ConclusionIn summary, our data suggest a prominent role of temporal structures (including the hippocampus) for learning capability, as well as thalamic and anterior cingulate structures for cognitive flexibility and response inhibition. The amygdala, the anterior cingulate lobe, and the caudate nucleus are particularly linked to animal personality in the open-field setting. These findings are congruent with the comparative psychological literature and provide a valuable basis for future studies elucidating aspects of behavioral variation in this nonhuman primate model.

Dataset Information

How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.

Publications

How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.

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