Thanks, FH.

Also, it was mentioned that the vaso-aphrodisiac is probably not going to work on humans because we do not have a highly developed sense of smell. But perhaps vasopressin released will still allow couples to form deep attachments because of the visual memory of one’s partner, probably no less unique in sight than a praire mole is in smell, during mating? Well, if visual associations do not work, perhaps a personalized blend of perfume during sex does?

Mol Psychiatry. 2002;7(5):503-7.
 
Transmission disequilibrium testing of arginine vasopressin receptor 1A (AVPR1A) polymorphisms in autism.

Kim SJ, Young LJ, Gonen D, Veenstra-VanderWeele J, Courchesne R, Courchesne E, Lord C, Leventhal BL, Cook EH Jr, Insel TR.

Laboratory of Developmental Neuroscience, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

Impairment in social reciprocity is a central component of autism. In preclinical studies, arginine vasopressin (AVP) has been shown to increase a range of social behaviors, including affiliation and attachment, via the V(1a) receptor (AVPR1A) in the brain. Both the behavioral effects of AVP and the neural distribution of the V1a receptor vary greatly across mammalian species. This difference in regional receptor expression as well as differences in social behavior may result from a highly variable repetitive sequence in the 5′ flanking region of the V1a gene (AVPR1A). Given this comparative evidence for a role in inter-species variation in social behavior, we explored whether within our own species, variation in the human AVPR1A may contribute to individual variations in social behavior, with autism representing an extreme form of social impairment. We genotyped two microsatellite polymorphisms from the 5′ flanking region of AVPR1A for 115 autism trios and found nominally significant transmission disequilibrium between autism and one of the microsatellite markers by Multiallelic Transmission/Disequilibrium test (MTDT) that was not significant after Bonferroni correction. We also screened approximately 2 kb of the 5′ flanking region and the coding region and identified 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Can you point me to some literature on this, please? Do you mean mutations that knock out microsatellites across the entire genome? Fascinating if so, but a quick Google didn’t find anything. And I think I must misunderstand, because knocking out all microsatellites would make linkage analysis (which would direct us toward the mutations) next to impossible.

Perhaps the finding that monogamous mammals exhibit extra-pair paternity isn’t surprising…but then the challenge becomes explaining why they bother with social monogamy (living with a partner on the same territory beyond mating periods) at all.

1) Most behavioral ecologists now view parental care as a phenomenon that is separate from the mating system. For example, a somewhat recent comparative analysis found that monogamy has evolved more in the absence of paternal care than in lineages with paternal care. And in those latter lineages, paternal care seems to have evolved after monogamy.

2) The vole result is extremely interesting, but most monogamous mammal species are even more flexible in their mating patterns than voles
and thus not likely to exhibit the same molecular
control of mating behavior. Many other species can shift their mating system from monogamy very quickly when ecological conditions change. I just finished reviewing a newish edited volume on monogamy for the Journal of Mammalogy, and it turns out that many “monogamous” mammals live in closely associated male-female pairs
(social monogamy), but frequently mate outside of the pair. For example, 44% of fat-tailed dwarf lemurs were fathered by males other than their mother’s social partner.

One last note…the hormone oxytocin is also likely to play a significant role in pair affiliation and the maintenance of monogamy.

THE PLAN

New snow is floating down dark on the old –
The shadows are deep. I think of the viruses,
Their dominion of man, how they raised him
In their conceit, and watched as he ran amok
Raising up civilization’s image
In their own (the viral paradigm divine)
Three billennia ago it happened,
They devised the plan: Let the apes grow
Fringey types, let ’Sapiens take dominion,
Let him — survive. As aphids to ants they’ll be –
(This was, of course, long before aphids;
They were conversing in metaphorese
The language of viruses long, long ago.)

In a fission they saw it, saw him rise
To Parnassus, test the bonds that bound him
Discover power’s fermentation;
Saw him, finally, discovering them
(The viral invasion, the ooze sublime)
There in the pattern’s deepening endurance,
In apocalyptic schism they triumphed,
Preoccupied: “As molds to gravity
They shall to us be, gravely intent
On the license our laws have so inspired” –
They saw him in their holy image shine.
Like old snow brightened by new, the viruses
Gleam in the shadows I watch, and know.

**************

Thanks for your many fine thoughts–keep them coming.

Mary (mother of nine)