The 'love' hormone has a dark side

Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the brain that is usually known for causing emotions like love, civility, and the ability to trust. But on January 28, 2011 evidence suggested that oxytocin was also capable of working with negative feelings. Oxytocin will actually intensify any tendencies the person already has. If a person is generally polite and respectful, then with a boost of oxytocin, they will become more so. But, if they are rude and defying, the boost of oxytocin will strengthen those traits. So even though, oxytocin is normally called the 'love hormone', this is not what it is, its more like an enhancer, to strengthen the way somebody is, or what they're already feeling.

Jennifer Bartz, a psychiatrist of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, worked with her colleagues to research further into the effects of oxytocin. They studied 14 people with borderline personality disorder and 13 other people that didn't have any similar conditions. People with borderline personality disorder experience serious insecurity with their relationships, issues with abandonment, and a need for reassurances from their partners. The two groups (the normal group and the group with borderline personality disorder) played a game where a volunteer had to predict wether the partner would cooperate with them. People with borderline personality disorder were more prone to quit after a nasal spray of oxytocin because they were already disposed to distrusting and insecurity towards the volunteer.

This research is important to humans because there were plans to administer oxytocin hormones in medications to people with autism or other similar conditions in order to make them more trusting and social. But, thanks to this discovery, the oxytocin hormones won't be administered, preventing those who would have taken the hormones from becoming even more suspicious towards other.

article by Bruce Bower, The 'love' hormone has a dark side. Science News. February 26, 2011 pg. 15.