Researchers have discovered that the naturally occurring hormone oxytocin intensifies men’s childhood memories of their mother’s level of affection.
Published yesterday (November 29) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study conducted a randomized trial, giving 31 men oxytocin or a placebo, and after 90 minutes, researchers assessed participants’ recollection of their mother’s care and closeness in childhood.
Men who were less anxious and more securely attached remembered their mother as more caring when they received the dose of oxytocin – but not the placebo.
However, men who were more anxious and less securely attached actually remembered their mother as less caring after receiving oxytocin – but not the placebo.
"The fact that oxytocin did not make all participants remember their mother as more caring, but in fact intensified the positivity or negativity of the men’s pre-existing memories, suggests that oxytocin plays a more specific role in these attachment representations. We believe that oxytocin may help people form memories about important social information in their environment and attach incentive value to those memories,” said lead author Jennifer Bartz, PhD at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.