ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2013
μ-Opioid receptors within subregions of the striatum mediate pair bond formation through parallel yet distinct reward mechanisms.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reduced volume of the nucleus accumbens in heroin addiction.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2015Trial
- Interactive impacts of social deprivation and intranasal oxytocin administration on oxytocin receptor density in prairie vole brains.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- The prairie vole gut-brain-microbiota-axis: a narrative review.Gut microbiome (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Mapping the cellular basis of species differences in oxytocin and dopamine receptor expression in the vole nucleus accumbens.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Oxytocin and opioid antagonists: A dual approach to improving social behavior.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Opioid Regulation of Social Homeostasis: Connecting Loneliness to Addiction.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- A review of the effects of different types of social behaviors on the recruitment of neuropeptides and neurotransmitters in the nucleus accumbens.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2025Review
- Article
- Developmental and Adult Striatal Patterning of Nociceptin Ligand Marks Striosomal Population With Direct Dopamine Projections.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2024Article
- Re-wiring of the bonded brain: Gene expression among pair bonded female prairie voles changes as they transition to motherhood.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2024Article
- Motherhood and DREADD manipulation of the nucleus accumbens weaken established pair bonds in female prairie voles.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Naturalistic learning and reproduction in ring neck doves (Streptopelia risoria).Learning & behavior · 2022Article
- Interplay between the oxytocin and opioid systems in regulating social behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Differences in dopamine and opioid receptor ratios in the nucleus accumbens relate to physical contact and undirected song in pair-bonded zebra finches.Behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Transcriptomic Regulations Underlying Pair-bond Formation and Maintenance in the Socially Monogamous Male and Female Prairie Vole.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- Using Receptor Autoradiography to Visualize and Quantify Oxytocin and Vasopressin 1a Receptors in the Human and Nonhuman Primate Brain.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Article
- The neural circuits of monogamous behavior.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- Article
- μ-Opioid Receptor (Oprm1) Copy Number Influences Nucleus Accumbens Microcircuitry and Reciprocal Social Behaviors.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The prairie vole is a socially monogamous rodent that is an excellent animal model for studies of the neurobiology of social attachment. Such studies have demonstrated that activation of reward circuitry during social interactions facilitates pair bond formation. Within this circuitry, μ-opioid receptors (MORs) modulate naturally rewarding behavior in an anatomically segregated manner; MORs located throughout the striatum (dorsal striatum, NAc core, and the entire NAc shell) are implicated in general motivational processes, whereas those located specifically within the dorsomedial NAc shell mediate positive hedonics (and are referred to as a "hedonic hotspot"). The purpose of the present study was to determine whether MORs within these distinct subregions differentially mediate pair bond formation. We first used receptor autoradiography to compare MOR binding densities between these regions. MOR binding was significantly higher in the NAc core and dorsomedial NAc shell compared with the ventral NAc shell. We next used partner preference testing to determine whether MORs within these subregions differentially mediate pair bonding. Blockade of MORs using 1 or 3 μg of H-d-Phe-Cys-Tyr-d-Trp-Arg-Thr-Pen-Thr-NH2 within the dorsal striatum decreased mating during the cohabitation period and inhibited partner preference formation. In contrast, blockade of MORs within dorsomedial NAc shell inhibited partner preference formation without effecting mating behavior, whereas other regions were not involved. Thus, MORs within the dorsal striatum mediate partner preference formation via impairment of mating, whereas those in the dorsomedial NAc shell appear to mediate pair bond formation through the positive hedonics associated with mating.
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