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

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, sur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human brain mapping Vol. 38; no. 9; pp. 4525 - 4534
Main Authors: Kreuder, Ann‐Kathrin, Scheele, Dirk, Wassermann, Lea, Wollseifer, Michael, Stoffel‐Wagner, Birgit, Lee, Mary R., Hennig, Juergen, Maier, Wolfgang, Hurlemann, René
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.09.2017
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Subjects:
Administration, Intranasal
Adult
Animal behavior
Brain
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain - drug effects
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cortex (cingulate)
Double-Blind Method
Female
fidelity
fMRI
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humans
Hypothalamus
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neurobiology
Neuroimaging
Nuclei
Nucleus accumbens
Offspring
Oxytocin
Oxytocin - administration & dosage
pair‐bonding
Pharmacology
Programmable logic controllers
Psychotropic Drugs - administration & dosage
Reinforcement
Sexual Behavior
Sexual Partners - psychology
Social Perception
Substrates
Touch
Touch Perception - drug effects
Touch Perception - physiology
fMRI
touch
oxytocin
fidelity
pair-bonding
ISSN:1065-9471, 1097-0193, 1097-0193
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:1065-9471
1097-0193
1097-0193
DOI:10.1002/hbm.23679