In the Now How About That Dep't: The bonding gene

Just reading this article gives me entirely too many ideas for SF stories having to do with scary possible gene therapies… 

A study of Swedish twin brothers found that differences in a gene modulating the hormone vasopressin were strongly tied to how well each man fared in marriage.

"Our main finding was an association between a variant of the vasopressin receptor 1a gene and how strong bonds men reported they had to their partners," said lead researcher Hasse Walum, of the department of medical epidemiology and biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "Men carrying this variant scored on average lower on a scale measuring the strength of the bond compared to men not carrying this variant."

Women married to men carrying the "poorer bonding" form of the gene also reported "lower scores on levels of marital quality than women married to men not carrying this variant," Walum noted.

…Vasopressin activates the brain's reward system, and "you could say that mating-induced vasopressin release motivates male voles to interact with females they have mated with," Walum said. "This is not a sexual motivation, but rather a sort of prolonged social motivation." In other words, the more vasopressin in the brain, the more male voles want to stick around and mingle with the female after copulation is through. This effect "is more pronounced in the monogamous voles," Walum noted.

NB: this study was done on voles. If you’re human, your mileage might vary.

And this final note:

…it's too early for men to blame their inability to commit on a single gene, although Lucas guesses it's an excuse that's "certainly going to be used."

 

Tags: vasopressin, bonding, gene, genetics, vole, Stockholm