jill of all tirades

Image of the vasopressin molecule

Recently, scientists have been studying the hormone vasopressin in prarie voles.  The male prarie vole is known for being a hang around kind of husband, and vasopressin has much to do with it.  This hormone is a prepheremone that causes the kidneys to retain water, vasoconstricion, and pair bonding.  This linkage between hormone and pair bonding has been proven in prarie voles, and now is being examined in humans.

The study I read examined the ammount of marital strife in 500 couples, that had been together at least 5 years, by survey.  Then the vasopressin gene was examined for mutations.  They found that a mutation in allel 334 was associated with lower scores in the partner bonding survey.  The interesting part of the study was that with no or one copy of the mutation, 16 percent of men reported marital crisis in the past year.  With two copies of the mutation, that percentage doubled.  Hmmmm . . .

Now, I will be the first one to say that this has not been proven.  These are just preliminary results in humans.  However, it does make you wonder what mutations or lack thereof that your partner might have.  Will there soon be genetic tests for probabliity of fidelity?

If anyone wants to read the full study, here is the citation:

Walum, H., et al. In press. Genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a gene (AVPR1A) associates with pair-bonding behavior in humans. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences