Age and oxytocin
Scientists have found out why people become more caring and satisfied with life with age
Daniil Sukhinov, Naked Science
The effects of aging on the physical and cognitive functions of the body are well known and described in the scientific literature. There is slightly less data on changes in social behavior and emotional reactions in people with age. For example, older people spend more time volunteering and donate most of their income to charity compared to younger people.
In addition, a number of studies show that the older a person gets, the more he is prone to prosocial behavior, that is, aimed at helping, cooperating and empathizing with other people and society as a whole. Age-related neurochemical reactions, such as changes in the amount of hormones released with age, can help explain the prosociality of the elderly.
Neuroscientists and psychologists from California decided to find out whether age—related changes in behavior and emotional mood are associated with a quantitative change in the release of an important neurohormone - oxytocin. An article with the results of the study was published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (Zak et al., Oxytocin Release Increases With Age and Is Associated With Life Satisfaction and Prosocial Behaviors).
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide (or peptide neurohormone) produced in the very center of our brain — in the hypothalamus. He is widely known for his role in the development of social attachment, interpersonal trust and generosity, as well as his connection with a general sense of life satisfaction.
The authors recruited for the study a little more than a hundred people aged 18 to 99 years, living or studying in Claremont and neighboring cities of Southern California (USA). Each participant was shown a video in which a father talks about his two-year-old son with a diagnosed cancer. Watching the video, as confirmed by the work, causes the release of oxytocin in many subjects. The change in the level of production of this hormone was carried out using blood samples that were taken before and after watching the video.
The method of conducting the experiment. Drawings from the article by Zak et al.
"The participants had the opportunity to donate part of their income from participating in the study to a pediatric cancer charity, and the donation amount was used to measure their immediate prosocial behavior. We also collected data on their emotional state to provide information about their overall life satisfaction," explained Dr. Paul Zak, a researcher at Claremont University and lead author of the study.
The dependence of the amount of voluntary donations on the age of the study participants.
It is expected that people with the greatest change in the content of oxytocin in the blood during the experiment were not only more generous to charity, but also showed many other types of help and empathy. According to the authors, this is the first study in which a distinct change in oxytocin levels is associated with manifested prosocial behavior, measured quantitatively. In addition, scientists have found that the amount of oxytocin released increases with age and positively correlates with life satisfaction, empathic care and religious activity.
Correlation between the relative change in the level of oxytocin (OT) in the blood and the age of the study participants.
"The results of our study are consistent with many religious and philosophical teachings, according to which life satisfaction is increased by helping others," Dr. Zak noted.
The authors plan to repeat the study on a more ethnically and geographically diverse sample of people to see if the results obtained are fair for representatives of different cultures and nationalities.
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