ReviewNature reviews. Neuroscience2018
The neural mechanisms and circuitry of the pair bond.
Review in Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 204 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
204 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 354 citations in OpenAlex.
- The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Kinetics of oxytocin effects on amygdala and striatal reactivity vary between women and men.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Hypothalamic-amygdala gating of caregiving-like prosocial behavior in mice.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Article
- Sexually dimorphic organization of extracellular matrix and perineuronal nets in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) social brain.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Stable clique membership in male mouse societies requires oxytocin-enabled social sensory states.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Hippocampal Gene Expression in Zebra Finches Reveals Sex- and Subregion-Specific Topographies.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Adult-to-infant unidirectional neural coupling mediates selective social learning in infants from the United Kingdom and Singapore.Nature communications · 2026Article
- How the brain represents a romantic partner: Dissociable roles of the nucleus accumbens and anterior insula.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- A Theoretical Framework for Studying the Phenomenon of Gaslighting.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2026Review
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (Microtus ochrogaster) Breeding Colony (2004-2020).Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026Article
- Type III CD38 is present in the membrane of neurosecretory vesicles and has a cytosol-facing catalytic domain in primate oxytocin neurons.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Sex-specific disruption of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) density in the social brain neural network by Firemaster 550.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2026Article
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Reduced neural specificity for a romantic partner in the nucleus accumbens over relationship duration.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Romantic love as regulatory co-option of maternal-bonding circuitry: a testable genetic account.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Differences in auditory brainstem responses between laboratory-reared and wild-caught prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster).PloS one · 2026Article
- Interactive impacts of social deprivation and intranasal oxytocin administration on oxytocin receptor density in prairie vole brains.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Distinct neural dynamics in the ventral hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex during social information processing.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Natural variation in the oxytocin receptor gene predicts social observation in female prairie voles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
144 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Love is one of our most powerful emotions, inspiring some of the greatest art, literature and conquests of human history. Although aspects of love are surely unique to our species, human romantic relationships are displays of a mating system characterized by pair bonding, likely built on ancient foundational neural mechanisms governing individual recognition, social reward, territorial behaviour and maternal nurturing. Studies in monogamous prairie voles and mice have revealed precise neural mechanisms regulating processes essential for the pair bond. Here, we discuss current viewpoints on the biology underlying pair bond formation, its maintenance and associated behaviours from neural and evolutionary perspectives.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.