Hypothalamic Oxytocin Mediates Social Buffering of the Stress Response
Open accessAbstract
Background While stressful life events can enhance the risk of mental disorders, positive social interactions can propagate good mental health and normal behavioral routines. Still, the neural systems that promote these benefits are undetermined. Oxytocin is a hormone involved in social behavior and stress; thus, we focus on the impact that social buffering has on the stress response and the governing effects of oxytocin.Methods Female prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) were exposed to 1 hour immobilization stress and then recovered alone or with their male partner to characterize the effect of social contact on the behavioral, physiological, and neuroendocrine stress response. In addition, we treated immobilized female voles recovering alone with oxytocin or vehicle and female voles recovering with their male partner with a selective oxytocin receptor antagonist or vehicle. Group sizes varied from 6 to 8 voles (N = 98 total).Results We found that 1 hour immobilization increased anxiety-like behaviors and circulating levels of corticosterone, a stress hormone, in female prairie voles recovering alone but not the female prairie voles recovering with their male partner. This social buffering by the male partner on biobehavioral responses to stress was accompanied by increased oxytocin release in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. Intra-paraventricular nucleus oxytocin injections reduced behavioral and corticosterone responses to immobilization, whereas injections of an oxytocin receptor antagonist blocked the effects of the social buffering.Conclusions Together, our data demonstrate that paraventricular nucleus oxytocin mediates the social buffering effects on the stress response and thus may be a target for treatment of stress-related disorders.
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Social bonding may buffer stress's biological brain effects by lessening negative stress appraisal, encouraging active coping, and reducing HPA stress responses.
“Research provides evidence that social bonding can moderate these biological effects of stress on the brain by reducing negative appraisal of stressors, promoting active and effective coping, and downregulating the HPA response to stress.16,48–51”
From Why the cognitive ‘fountain of youth’ may be upstream: pathways to dementia risk and resilience through social connectedness (2022) · cites this paper as [49]
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- Authors
- Smith, A. S., & Wang, Z.
- Affiliations
- Florida State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Smith, Adam S.
- Venue
- Biological Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-08
- Volume
- 76
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 281-288
- ISSN
- 0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3969451
- OpenAlex
- W1974370090
- Cited by
- 359
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 29 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 27.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Biological Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Public Health Service (R01-058616, F31-095464)
- National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH095464, R01MH058616)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuropeptides and Animal Physiology
- Keywords
- social buffering, oxytocin, hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, stress response, restraint stress, corticosterone, anxiety-like behavior, oxytocin receptor antagonist, Microtus ochrogaster, social support, stress-related disorders
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Anxiety, Corticosterone, Arvicolinae, Female, Motor Activity, Oxytocin, Pair Bond, Paraventricular Hypothalamic Nucleus, Random Allocation, Restraint, Physical, Social Behavior, Social Isolation, Stress, Psychological, Receptors, Oxytocin
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