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One of the areas we know is really important in terms of the social bonding
in prairie voles is the nucleus accumbens and its output the ventral pallidum.
So these are two areas that are part of the brain's circuitry.
They are critically involved in things like addiction,
so it's not surprising that they might also be involved in
the social bond formation; maybe a social bond is very similar to an addiction.
So in the prairie voles oxytocin acts in the nucleus accumbens
where there are lots of receptors to promote that pair bonding;
It actually acts
to activate the reward circuitry so that the social interaction itself
becomes very pleasant,
and individual associates that pleasant, rewarding aspect of the social interaction
with the particular individual that they're interacting with, so that in the
future they want to be with that individual,
so it's sort of a self-perpetuating process that draws the animals into a stronger
and stronger bond.
Oxytocin is acting in females to promote that bond in the nucleus
accumbens, in males vasopressin is acting in the ventral pallidum, which is just below
the nucleus accumbens [and is] part of the same circuitry
so in both cases, the males and females, you have
these two molecules acting in the same circuitry to promote this behavior,
which has remarkable parallels to addiction.