ArticleHuman brain mapping2015
Adult attachment style is associated with cerebral μ-opioid receptor availability in humans.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 137 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of childhood adversity on acute subjective effects of stimulant and opioid drugs: Evidence from placebo-controlled studies in healthy volunteers.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Trial
- Naltrexone alters responses to social and physical warmth: implications for social bonding.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Trial
- Aberrant type 2 dopamine and mu-opioid receptor availability in autism spectrum disorder.European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging · 2026Article
- The impact of childhood maltreatment and parental styles on telomere length: the modulatory role of A118G.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Oxytocin and opioid antagonists: A dual approach to improving social behavior.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Multimodal population study reveals the neurobiological underpinnings of chronotype.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Opioid Regulation of Social Homeostasis: Connecting Loneliness to Addiction.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Why friendship and loneliness affect our health.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Endogenous opioid receptor system mediates costly altruism in the human brain.Communications biology · 2024Article
- TheFrontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Opioidergic tuning of social attachment: reciprocal relationship between social deprivation and opioid abuse.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2024Review
- Mu-opioid receptor system modulates responses to vocal bonding and distress signals in humans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Social isolation and the brain in the pandemic era.Nature human behaviour · 2022Review
- Genetics of adult attachment and the endogenous opioid system.World journal of psychiatry · 2022Article
- Rejection sensitivity and mu opioid receptor dynamics associated with mood alterations in response to social feedback.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2022Article
- Associations of the A118G OPRM1 polymorphism with sociotropy and interpersonal sensitivity.Brain and behavior · 2022Article
- μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Interaction Matters: The Effect of Touching the Social Robot PARO on Pain and Stress is Stronger When Turned ON vs. OFF.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2022Article
- Integrative Model of Human-Animal Interactions: A One Health-One Welfare Systemic Approach to Studying HAI.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Article
- Neurobiology of Loneliness, Isolation, and Loss: Integrating Human and Animal Perspectives.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human attachment behavior mediates establishment and maintenance of social relationships. Adult attachment characteristically varies on anxiety and avoidance dimensions, reflecting the tendencies to worry about the partner breaking the social bond (anxiety) and feeling uncomfortable about depending on others (avoidance). In primates and other mammals, the endogenous μ-opioid system is linked to long-term social bonding, but evidence of its role in human adult attachment remains more limited. We used in vivo positron emission tomography to reveal how variability in μ-opioid receptor (MOR) availability is associated with adult attachment in humans. We scanned 49 healthy subjects using a MOR-specific ligand [(11) C]carfentanil and measured their attachment avoidance and anxiety with the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised scale. The avoidance dimension of attachment correlated negatively with MOR availability in the thalamus and anterior cingulate cortex, as well as the frontal cortex, amygdala, and insula. No associations were observed between MOR availability and the anxiety dimension of attachment. Our results suggest that the endogenous opioid system may underlie interindividual differences in avoidant attachment style in human adults, and that differences in MOR availability are associated with the individuals' social relationships and psychosocial well-being.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.