Rethinking the Architecture of Attachment: New Insights into the Role for Oxytocin Signaling

Social attachments, the enduring bonds between individuals and groups, are essential to health and well-being. The appropriate formation and maintenance of social relationships depend upon a number of affective processes, including stress regulation, motivation, reward, as well as reciprocal interactions necessary for evaluating the affective state of others. A genetic, molecular, and neural circuit level understanding of social attachments therefore provides a powerful substrate for probing the affective processes associated with social behaviors. Socially monogamous species form long-term pair bonds, allowing us to investigate the mechanisms underlying attachment. Now, molecular genetic tools permit manipulations in monogamous species. Studies using these tools reveal new insights into the genetic and neuroendocrine factors that design and control the neural architecture underlying attachment behavior. We focus this discussion on the prairie vole and oxytocinergic signaling in this and related species as a model of attachment behavior that has been studied in the context of genetic and pharmacological manipulations. We consider developmental processes that impact the demonstration of bonding behavior across genetic backgrounds, the modularity of mechanisms underlying bonding behaviors, and the distributed circuitry supporting these behaviors. Incorporating such theoretical considerations when interpreting reverse genetic studies in the context of the rich ethological and pharmacological data collected in monogamous species provides an important framework for studies of attachment behavior in both animal models and studies of human relationships.