一项研究发现，男性关于童年时期他们的母亲的关爱的回忆可能被一种在大脑中自然产生的化学物质强化。科学家长期以来认为被称为后叶催产素的神经递质能够积极地增强人们体验和回忆一大批社会互动，包括母亲的照顾和亲密。
Jennifer Bartz及其同事调查了后叶催产素在社会感受方面的作用，方法是为成年男性注射这种药物，而这些男性在参与这项研究之前回答了关于他们在童年时期母亲照顾情况的问卷调查。在数周时间里，这组科学家追踪了这些男性的回忆在获得了一份后叶催产素或安慰剂之后如何发生变化。这组作者说，与那些获得安慰剂的男性相比，正面地回忆起他们的母亲的照顾的男性在接受了后叶催产素之后倾向于把他们的母亲评定为更多的照顾他们。另一方面，和母亲的关系引起焦虑的男性更多地把他们的母亲描述为较少照顾他们，这提示这种药物可能加强了预先存在的感受。
这组作者说，这项研究还提出了一个问题，即后叶催产素是否能增加准确地回忆母亲的照顾的能力，或者这种化学物质是否启动了一种有偏见的对记忆的搜寻来支持当前的长期以来的印象。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文摘要：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1012669107
Effects of oxytocin on recollections of maternal care and closeness
Jennifer A. Bartza,1, Jamil Zakib, Kevin N. Ochsnerc, Niall Bolgerc, Alexander Kolevzona, Natasha Ludwiga, and John E. Lydond
aDepartment of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029;
bDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
cDepartment of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027; and
dDepartment of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2T5
Although the infant–caregiver attachment bond is critical to survival, little is known about the biological mechanisms supporting attachment representations in humans. Oxytocin plays a key role in attachment bond formation and maintenance in animals and thus could be expected to affect attachment representations in humans. To investigate this possibility, we administered 24 IU intranasal oxytocin to healthy male adults in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover designed study and then assessed memories of childhood maternal care and closeness—two features of the attachment bond. We found that the effects of oxytocin were moderated by the attachment representations people possess, with less anxiously attached individuals remembering their mother as more caring and close after oxytocin (vs. placebo) but more anxiously attached individuals remembering their mother as less caring and close after oxytocin (vs. placebo). These data contrast with the popular notion that oxytocin has broad positive effects on social perception and are more consistent with the animal literature, which emphasizes oxytocin's role in encoding social memories and linking those memories to the reward value of the social stimulus.
