How can social interaction activate the reward system in the brain (showing love)?

A study has provided the first comprehensive picture of how social interaction activates reward systems within the brain, promoting monogamous (monogamous) unions.
grassland field mice are one of the few single mammals to observe them or help people understand how specific patterns of brain activity can promote the binding of two individuals.
results were published online June 1 in Nature.
adult combination involves a number of significant changes in one's perception and evaluation of the other.
one of the key changes occurred when potential partners began to effectively activate the reward system in each other's brains, but it remains unclear what neural mechanisms the reward system use to bind partners.
Robert Liu and colleagues at Emory University in Georgia, USA, used a social connection model of prairie field mice to study the cortical synth circuit in the brain, which controls an animal's ability to change its behavior for reward.
The authors recorded cortical synth circuit activity in female field mice within six hours of cohabitation with male field mice, and found that cortical synth connection strength could indicate how quickly animals begin to build relationships, which are shown in mating and side-by-side crowding.
By using photogenetics (light-mediated) to rhythmically activate the circuit in a mating-free social context, the authors were able to influence the preferences of female field mice later on in the face of unfamiliar field mice.
findings suggest that cortical synth circuit activity is not only associated with binding behavior, but may also accelerate it.
, however, the authors acknowledge that further testing of their hypothesis is needed to determine whether the circuit is not only a sufficient condition for enhancing the binding behavior of these animals, but also a necessary condition.
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