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                                     OXYTOCIN


Topics on this Page About Oxytocin:

More about Oxytocin 
Love Hormone     
Technical Findings
Chemistry of Connection
A Warm Bath for the Brain

 

'Love Hormone' May Help Treat Personality Disorder  
by Fran Lowry  

DRUG & REFERENCE INFORMATION Borderline Personality Disorder

The neuropeptide oxytocin, which has been shown to reduce anxiety in social situations, enhance the recognition of facial expressions, and shift attention from negative to positive information, may decrease social-threat hypersensitivity in women with borderline personality disorder.

"This is the first study, to our knowledge, to reveal beneficial effects of intranasally administered oxytocin on facial threat processing in female borderline patients," the authors, led by Katja Bertsch, PhD, University of Heidelberg, in Germany, write.

The study was published in the October issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Intranasal oxytocin has been shown to improve facial recognition and shift attention from negative social information. In this study, the authors sought to see whether the neuropeptide would benefit women with borderline personality disorder.

The researchers administered 26 IU of oxytocin or a placebo intranasally in a double-blind design to 40 women with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and 41 healthy women between the ages of 18 and 36 years.

The women undertook an emotion classification task 45 minutes after receiving oxytocin or placebo.

The investigators then compared the number and duration of initial eye movements, manual response latencies, and amygdala activation between groups by combining eye tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The investigators found that the patients with borderline personality disorder showed more and faster initial fixation changes than healthy women and had more saccades to the eyes of angry faces, combined with greater amygdala activation in response to angry faces, compared with the control group.

These abnormal behavioral and neural patterns were normalized after oxytocin administration, the authors report.

The study findings suggest that patients with borderline personality disorder show a hypersensitivity to social threat in early reflexive stages of information processing, commented Eric Hollander, MD, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Montefiore Medical Center, New York City, in an accompanying editorial.

Dr. Hollander suggests combining therapeutic agents that enhance oxytocin signaling with psychosocial interventions aimed at teaching social skills and social decision making for patients with borderline personality disorder and perhaps other diagnoses such as depression.

"Such combination treatments might be most important for individuals with early-life vulnerability of this system and/or individuals with genetic vulnerability of this system," he concludes.

Dr. Bertsch and her colleagues report no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Hollander reports receiving research grants from the Simons Foundation, NARSAD, NIMH, NINDS, the Orphan Products Division of the FDA, Roche, Transcept, Coronado, and Forest; consulting for Roche, Coronado, and Transcept; and having intellectual property involving memantine, oxytocin, and fluoxetine in autism.

Am J Psychiatry. 2013;170:1169-1177, 1086-1089.
 


A Warm Bath for the Brain  by Linda Graham 
     (Also appears on Tools For Non-BPS's Page)

Understanding
Oxytocin's role in therapeutic change

Q: The couples I see often are in such a state of emotional arousal that they can't calm down enough to do the work of therapy. What can I do to reduce their agitation and help them become more emotionally open, to me and to each other?

A: I know exactly what you mean. Take a recent session of mine. Lisa started yelling at her husband, Andy: "You never talk to me anymore! I'm sick and tired of you never saying anything! You're a brick wall!" He sat frozen on the couch, staring at his hands.
When clients are emotionally worked up, caught in fight-flight-freeze mode, all their hard-earned skills in empathic listening and responsible (and responsive) speaking go out the window. Nothing therapeutic is going to happen until they feel calm enough and safe enough to reengage with each other.

So I quickly asked them to do what I knew would calm Lisa down and re-engage Andy in less than a minute.

"Stop! Breathe. B-r-e-a-t-h-e. Place your hand on your heart. Breathe any calm you can muster right down into your heart center."

They did, because they've done this before with me, and they knew it works. "Let yourself relax into that calm. Now remember any moment you can of safety, trust, love with each other, any moment at all. Get the sense of that memory in your body. Feel the love and the trust in your body. Settle into it. Relax and breathe."

In less than a minute, Lisa felt calm enough and Andy felt safe enough to reengage in the work they knew they need to do to rebuild the trust, connection, and intimacy that'll save their marriage.

What happened inside their brains that allowed them to recalibrate so quickly? How can they make it happen again whenever they feel overwhelmed, to give their relationships a chance to heal?

What happened was that
Oxytocin flooded through their brains. Oxytocin is a naturally occurring hormone, which stimulates feelings of bonding and trust and reduces fear and anxiety by reversing the stress response. Just one of many neurochemicals that neuroscientists now know are potent catalysts of psycho-physiological change, Oxytocin is extremely relevant for us therapists: it is the neurochemical basis of the sense of safety and trust that allows clients to become open to therapeutic change.

Produced in the hypothalamus, deep in the midbrain,
Oxytocin is released naturally into the bloodstream through warmth, touch, and movement. Orgasm and breastfeeding generate Oxytocin. It also floods our brains and bodies when we're in close proximity to someone by whom we feel deeply loved and cherished. Even evoking memories of people close and dear to us will spark its release.

Do clients need to know how the release of
Oxytocin calms and soothes them to benefit from its effects? Maybe not. But I've learned that clients love the sense of mastery and agency that comes from knowing not only how the Oxytocin response works, but how they can stimulate it within themselves.

Andy reported in the next session that just two days before, Lisa was in a high state of agitation when she was running late getting their recalcitrant 4-year-old son to preschool. He was afraid that saying anything would make matters worse, so he stood in the doorway where Lisa could see him with his hand on his heart. Lisa caught herself, stopped, met his gaze, and put her hand on her heart, too. He took one step toward her; she took three steps toward him. They melted into a 20-second, full-body, "tend and befriend"
Oxytocin-releasing hug, and then calmly got their son to school, on time, without further upset.

Lack of warmth and touch in clients' earliest attachment relationships can derail the full maturation of
Oxytocin receptors in the brain. A deficiency in this "molecule of motherly love" makes it much harder for them to "feel" the love and trust available to them in other relationships, later in life.

Our "re-parenting" of clients—allowing them to experience us as reliably secure attachment figures or helping couples experience each other as secure attachment figures—contributes to rebuilding those receptors in the brain, even after years of depression and loneliness. Many times, I explicitly evoked Andy's previous experience of me, and of Lisa, to stimulate feelings of the safety and bonding that were available to him, saying things like:

"I'm feeling touched as I hear you talk about your fears of speaking up with Lisa. I'm so moved that you would share that with me, with us."

"That was quite a lot of sadness you let yourself feel just now. What's it like to feel so much sadness and share those feelings with me? With us?"

"What do you see in Lisa's eyes as you share your sadness with her? What do you see in her eyes as she feels what you feel?"

Scientists are discovering that helping clients shift their neurochemical responses from the fight-or-flight response of cortisol to the calm-and-connect response of
Oxytocin primes the brain to alter the ways neural networks process emotions, thoughts, memories, and feelings. According to Sue Carter of the Chicago Psychiatric Institute, a single exposure to Oxytocin can make a lifelong change in the brain. Therapy offers enough sustained exposure to Oxytocin that clients can rewire large segments of implicit relationship "rules."

In other words, by strengthening our clients' conscious ability to stimulate the release of this hormone, we can begin to rewire the deep encoding of habitual, often unconscious, patterns of response to relational distress. The more we do this with them, the more permanent the changes become.

Linda Graham, M.F.T., is in full-time private practice in San Francisco and Corte Madera, California, specializing in relationship counseling for individuals and couples. She offers consultation and trainings nationwide on the integration of relational psychology, mindfulness, and neuroscience. She publishes a monthly e-newsletter on Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness, archived on www.lindagraham-mft.com, and is writing a book to be entitled Growing Up and Waking Up: the Emergence of the Whole Self. Contact: lindagraham2@earthlink.net  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Tell us what you think about this article by e-mail at letters@psychnetworker.org  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or at www.psychotherapynetworker.org. Log in and you'll find the comment section on every page of the online Magazine section.

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Effects of Partner Support on Resting Oxytocin, Cortisol, Norepinephrine, and Blood Pressure Before and After Warm Partner Contact  

Karen M. Grewen, PhD, Susan S. Girdler, PhD, Janet Amico, MD and Kathleen C. Light, PhD.
From the Departments of Psychiatry (K.M.G., S.S.G., K.C.L.) and Psychology (S.S.G., K.C.L.), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and the Departments of Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (J.A.).

Objective: We examined whether the magnitude of plasma oxytocin (OT), norepinephrine (NE), cortisol, and blood pressure (BP) responses before and after a brief episode of warm contact (WC) with the spouse/partner may be related to the strength of perceived partner support.

Methods: Subjects were 38 cohabiting couples (38 men, 38 women) aged 20 to 49 years. All underwent 10 minutes of resting baseline alone, 10 minutes of WC together with their partner, and 10 minutes of postcontact rest alone.

Results: Greater partner support (based on self-report) was related to higher plasma oxytocin in men and women across the protocol before and after WC. In women, higher partner support was correlated with lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) during solitary rest after WC but not before. Also, higher OT in women was linked to lower BP at baseline and to lower NE at all 4 measurements.

Conclusion: Greater partner support is linked to higher OT for both men and women; however, the importance of OT and its potentially cardioprotective effects on sympathetic activity and BP may be greater for women.

Key Words: warm contact • partner support • oxytocin • norepinephrine • cortisol • blood pressure

Abbreviations: ABP = ambulatory blood pressure; BMI = body mass index; BP = blood pressure; CVD = cardiovascular disease; DBP = diastolic blood pressure; HPA = hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal; HR = heart rate; IV = intravenous; MI = myocardial infarction; NE = norepinephrine; OT = oxytocin; SBP = systolic blood pressure; SNS = sympathetic nervous system; SRI = Social Relationships Index; WC = warm contact.

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The Chemistry of Connection - adapted from the book "Loneliness"
by John T. Cacioppo & William Patrick 
   Oxytocin: new findings


In 1906, a young physiologist named Henry Dale, first isolated a small protein or peptide associated with breastfeeding in all mammals.  Arising from the pituitary glad, this substance, called oxytocin, also played a role in pacing the birth process.  Later research would demonstrate that oxytocin is, in a way, a master chemical: of social connection, and as close as anything we know to the love potions popular in romantic folk tales.  Physical manifestations of connection such as hugs and backrubs increase oxytocin levels in the areas being touched

When an infant breastfeeds, the stimulation increases the concentration of oxytocin, which then hasten the release of milk.  Over time this stimulation becomes a conditioned reflex for the mother, and simply seeing her baby is enough to cause her milk to let down.

Ewes that are given an injection of oxytocin will develop a maternal bond with lambs that are not their own.   After an injection of oxytocin, female lab rats begin to exhibit maternal behavior even when they have not been pregnant.  They build a nest, pick up any young they find in the vicinity, carry them to the next, then lick and groom them.  They even lie down as if to "nurse" their adopted young, even though they are not producing milk.

Oxytocin aids social regulation by being the chemical of calm.  Apes who groom each other are not just exhibiting behavior of grooming or courtesy.  The touching in the grooming stimulates the release of oxytocin, which helps promote social harmony.  Backrubs cause the production of oxytocin, accompanied by immense feelings of pleasure, where more oxytocin is produced. 

You may be asking yourself now: what does this have to do with Borderline Personality Disorder?  Here's your answer:  Areas of the brain influenced by oxytocin include the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and areas of the brain stem affecting blood pressure, pulse, alertness, movement and feeling.  Therefore, any encounter causing the release of oxytocin can improve many areas of our outlook.  Oxytocin in synthesized in neurons of the hypothalamus, then released into the bloodstream by the pituitary gland.  The amygdala is the area of the brain that is usually smaller in Borderlines, is where emotion regulation begins its short-circuiting.  Oxytocin helps the hindered amygdala, as a neurotransmitter and is delivered directly to the hypothalamus in the brain.

Oxytocin can reduce stress reactivity, increase tolerance for pain and reduce the possibility of being distracted.  Literally, oxytocin creates warmth between human and animal encounters.  Eating serves as a kind of "internal back-rub", creating a warm feeling in the stomach that also releases oxytocin into the brain.   Therefore, a good meal with good friends can be the best of both worlds in relieving stress.  Self-soothing is also one of the Skills taught in DBT Skills groups.  Any sort of oral gratification such as thumb-sucking, smoking, eating can release oxytocin, and complications can be observed when these areas are over-indulged.

The safe way to "manufacture" one's own oxytocin, is to place one's hands (one on top of the other) over their heart.  It is a self-soothing, calmative action that can generate enough oxytocin to calm a potentially excitable mood or reaction.  More discussion on this can be derived by reading this book in its entirety.

Stress causes the production of oxytocin.  It stands to reason that a Borderline would be flooded with this chemical (with all the perceived stressors).  A small amount of stress will produce and increase in oxytocin. 

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