For advertising information call 859.368.0778 or email [email protected] | February 2016
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Drunk With Love:
How Alcohol and
Oxytocin Are Similar
Could be key to unlocking new
addiction treatments
By Angela S. Hoover, Staff Writer
Ah, love … known scientifically as
the hormone oxytocin.
This “love hormone” facilitates
bonding, increases trust and promotes altruism. But as with anything,
there are two sides to it, and recent
research is revealing the dark side of
oxytocin. Namely, this hormone can
increase aggression, risk taking and
prejudice. An analysis of a large body
of research has concluded that oxytocin’s effects on the brain and behavior
look a lot like something else that
has a light and dark side: alcohol.
This means oxytocin may be a key to
unlocking new treatments for alcohol
addiction.
Psychology researchers at the
University of Birmingham in England
found in a meta-analysis that both
oxytocin and alcohol reduce fear,
anxiety and stress while increasing
trust, generosity and altruism. Both
also increase aggression, risk taking
and “in-group” bias (favoring people
similar to oneself at the expense of
others).
The scientists, led by Ian Mitchell,
suggest these similarities probably
exist because oxytocin and alcohol act
at different points in the same chemical pathway in the brain. Oxytocin
stimulates the release of the neurotransmitter GABA, which tends to
reduce neural activity. Alcohol binds
to GABA receptors and ramps up
GABA activity. Oxytocin and alcohol
both have the general effect of tamp-
ing down brain activity, which could
at least partially explain how and
why both oxytocin and alcohol lower
inhibitions. The meta-analysis results
were published as a paper in the
August 2015 issue of Neuroscience
and Biobehavioral Reviews.
An earlier study by these same
researchers suggests oxytocin and
alcohol not only act in the same neural pathway, but they may physically
interact with each other. Inspired by
clinical trials that demonstrated a
nasal spray of oxytocin reduced cravings and withdrawal symptoms in
alcoholics, the psychologists showed
oxytocin prevented drunken motor
impairment in rats by blocking the
GABA receptor subunit usually
bound by alcohol. Mitchell posits
this interaction is specific to brain
regions that regulate movement,
thereby sparing the usual motor
deficits associated with alcohol but
still influencing social and affective
processes. These findings suggest that
getting “love drunk” may impede a
person from getting truly drunk. This
study was published in the March
2015 issue of the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA.
The researchers hope scientists will
develop oxytocin-based treatments
for alcoholics in the near future.
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