San Francisco, Jan. 28 -- : Monogamy or childbirth is not affected by removing the oxytocin receptor.
The receptor for oxytocin, a hormone thought to be crucial for forming social bonds, may not play the crucial role that scientists have assigned to it for the past 30 years, according to new research from researchers at UC San Francisco and Stanford Medicine. This finding challenges a decades-old dogma.
The scientists discovered that prairie voles reproduced without oxytocin receptors and had the same monogamous mating, bonding, and parenting behaviours as ordinary voles. The study will be published on January 27 in the journal Neuron.
In addition, although in smaller amounts than typical female voles, females without oxytocin receptors ...