# Understanding the neural basis of social attachment

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2021 · $585,885

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Social attachments form the basis of human relationships at every level of social organization, from
relationships between parents and children, romantic partners, to peers and group affiliation. Disruptions in
attachment occur across the spectrum of mental illness, and severe neuropsychiatric disorders often manifest
with a dramatic collapse of social attachment and cognition. Despite this critical role of social attachment, little
is known regarding the neural and genetic mechanisms underlying attachment. Mice and other genetic model
organisms do not exhibit enduring social attachments, precluding genetic analysis of these behaviors.
 Prairie voles are small rodents that display social monogamy, or pair bonds, between mates. Pair bond
formation results in dramatic changes to many other innate social behaviors. Thus, prairie voles engage in a
rich repertoire of social behaviors that strikingly mirror attachment in humans. Pioneering work identified the
peptide hormones vasopressin (Avp) and oxytocin (Oxt), as critical mediators of pair bonding in voles and
social cognition and behaviors in humans. These findings suggest that the genetics and neural control of social
attachment may be conserved, and indeed, have inspired clinical trials seeking to use these hormones to
ameliorate disruptions in social cognition due to neuropsychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, how these
pathways and other genes function to control specific aspects of complex social behaviors remains unknown.
 Until now, we have been unable to understand how OxtR and V1aR function to control patterns of
neural activity in response to partners or strangers. We have generated prairie voles bearing mutations in OxtR
and V1aR that completely eliminate the function of these receptors, and developed approaches for optical
recording of neural activity in freely moving animals during behavior and profiling of gene expression in prairie
voles. Using this powerful system, we can now test the hypothesis that OxtR and V1aR control distinct aspects
of 1) pair bonding and adult social attachment behaviors, 2) partner- or stranger-specific patterns of neural
activity in specific regions of the vole brain during social interactions, and 3) changes in gene expression
underlying social attachment in these neural populations. Our preliminary work suggests that OxtR signaling is
not required genetically for pair bonding in prairie voles, and, thus, that a more refined understanding of the
neural and molecular pathways underlying social attachment may provide new insights into the pathways that
mediate the formation of such long term social memory and affiliation. These studies will elucidate the
mechanisms by which OxtR and V1aR facilitate attachment and, eventually, inform new therapeutic
approaches across the spectrum of mental illness.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10249294
- **Project number:** 5R01MH123513-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Devanand Sadanand Manoli
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $585,885
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-01 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10249294

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10249294, Understanding the neural basis of social attachment (5R01MH123513-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10249294. Licensed CC0.

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