Love potion number bird

Scientists believe that the hormone oxytocin is responsible for creating intimate bonds between humans … but there’s much more to it than just being Simpson & Son’s tonic, as new studies are showing: finches beware! It’s been reported that researchers at Indiana University have experimented with finches’ levels of mesotocin, the finch version of oxytocin:

When the scientists at IU gave drugs that block mesotocin receptors to zebra finches – which are normally highly social creatures – the birds spent much less time with familiar individuals and more time with unfamiliar individuals. They also preferred to hang out in smaller groups. By contrast, zebra finches given extra mesotocin became more social and spent more time with familiar faces… Intriguingly, the same paper suggests that the distribution of oxytocin receptors in the brain might help to explain why some animals are more social than others. When the researchers compared three flocking finch species with two territorial, aggressive species, they found that the more social species had more mesotocin receptors in a part of the brain called the lateral septum. Blocking these receptors made the birds become less social.

So there you have it: oxytocin – the chemical that will make you act like a jerk, whether or not you like someone. Also, how can you not like testing oxytocin on animals? You know that they’d do the same thing to us if they had opposable thumbs.