Oxytocin and the Healing Power of Love

Humans are intrinsically social. For optimal health we have an evolved dependence on attachments and a sense of safety. Selective and secure social bonds can protect against illness even in the face of diseases and trauma. Without positive relationships, especially in early life, humans fail to flourish, even if all of their basic needs are met. The absence of nurture and perceived safety can create physical and emotional vulnerability at any stage in the lifespan. Until recently the mechanisms through which love protects remained poorly understood. However, there is increasing evidence that the same biology and chemistry that supports parenting, social attachment and love also has the power to directly protect and heal. At the center of the physiology of love and a sense of safety is oxytocin, a hormone unique to mammals, with the capacity to support sociality across the life span, while coordinating pathways that are essential for the functions of the autonomic nervous system and dealing with inflammation and cellular stress.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SPEAKER
NAME: PROF. C. SUE CARTER, PhD
AFFILIATION: DISTINGUISHED UNIVERSITY RESEARCH SCIENTIST DIRECTOR EMERITUS, THE KINSEY
INSTITUTE RUDY PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF BIOLOGY INDIANA UNIVERSITY, BLOOMINGTON, IN
47405 AND PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGYINDIANA UNIVERSITY, BLOOMINGTON AND UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, USA
Sue Carter, Ph.D. is currently a Distinguished University Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. She has held Professorships at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and between 2014 and 2019 was the Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute. A career biologist, Carter has studied the neuroendocrinology of love and social bonds for more than four decades.
Dr. Carter’s research was integral to discovering the relationship between social behavior and oxytocin. Her current work in humans and other mammals examines the developmental and epigenetic consequences of oxytocin and the role of oxytocin pathways in selective sociality. She was the first person to detect and define the endocrinology of social bonds through her research on the socially monogamous, prairie vole. These findings helped lay the foundation for ongoing studies of behavioural and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin, and identification of the many faceted role of oxytocin as “Nature’s Medicine.”