‘Trust hormone’ oxytocin helps old muscle work like new, study finds

UC Berkeley researchers have discovered that oxytocin — a hormone associated with maternal nurturing, social attachments, childbirth and sex — is indispensable for healthy muscle maintenance and repair, and that in mice it declines with age.

The new study published today (June 10) in the journal Nature Communications, presents oxytocin as the latest treatment target for age-related muscle wasting, or sarcopenia.

The healthy muscle tissue on the left is from a young mouse. The ability of muscle to repair itself decreases with age, as evidenced by the middle image of old muscle tissue, which shows a lower density of muscle fibers, increased scar tissue and inflammation. The addition of oxytocin to the blood of old mice rapidly rejuvenates the old muscle, as shown on the right. (Photos by Wendy Cousin and Christian Elabd, UC Berkeley)

A few other biochemical factors in blood have been connected to aging and disease in recent years, but oxytocin is the first anti-aging molecule identified that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical use in humans, the researchers said. Pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin, is already used to help with labor and to control bleeding after childbirth. Clinical trials of an oxytocin nasal spray are also underway to alleviate symptoms associated with mental disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and dementia.

“Unfortunately, most of the molecules discovered so far to boost tissue regeneration are also associated with cancer, limiting their potential as treatments for humans,” said study principal investigator Irina Conboy, associate professor of bioengineering. “Our quest is to find a molecule that not only rejuvenates old muscle and other tissue, but that can do so sustainably long-term without increasing the risk of cancer.”

Conboy and her research team say that oxytocin, secreted into the blood by the brain’s pituitary gland, is a good candidate because it is a broad range hormone that reaches every organ, and it is not known to be associated with tumors or to interfere with the immune system.

A happy hormone

Oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the “trust hormone” because of its association with romance and friendship. It is released with a warm hug, a grasped hand or a loving gaze, and it increases libido. The hormone kicks into high gear during and after childbirth, helping new mothers bond with and breastfeed their new babies.

“This is the hormone that makes your heart melt when you see kittens, puppies and human babies,” said Conboy, who is also a member of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center and of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3). “There is an ongoing joke among my research team that we’re all happy, friendly and trusting because oxytocin permeates the lab.”

The researchers pointed out that while oxytocin is found in both young boys and girls, it is not yet known when levels of the hormone start to decline in humans, and what levels are necessary for maintaining healthy tissues.

Christian Elabd and Wendy Cousin, both senior scientists in Conboy’s lab, were co-lead authors on this study.

Previous research by Elabd found that administering oxytocin helped prevent the development of osteoporosis in mice that had their ovaries removed to mimic menopause.

Extra oxytocin more beneficial for the old

The new study determined that in mice, blood levels of oxytocin declined with age. They also showed that there are fewer receptors for oxytocin in muscle stem cells in old versus young mice.

To tease out oxytocin’s role in muscle repair, the researchers injected the hormone under the skin of old mice for four days, and then for five days more after the muscles were injured. After the nine-day treatment, they found that the muscles of the mice that had received oxytocin injections healed far better than those of a control group of mice without oxytocin.

“The action of oxytocin was fast,” said Elabd. “The repair of muscle in the old mice was at about 80 percent of what we saw in the young mice.”

Interestingly, giving young mice an extra boost of oxytocin did not seem to cause a significant change in muscle regeneration.

“This is good because it demonstrates that extra oxytocin boosts aged tissue stem cells without making muscle stem cells divide uncontrollably,” Cousin added.

The researchers also found that blocking the effects of oxytocin in young mice rapidly compromised their ability to repair muscle, which resembled old tissue after an injury.

The researchers also studied mice whose gene for oxytocin was disabled, and compared them with a group of control mice. At a young age, there was no significant difference between the two groups in muscle mass or repair efficiency after an injury. It wasn’t until the mice with the disabled oxytocin gene reached adulthood that signs of premature aging began to appear.

“When disabling other types of genes associated with tissue repair, defects appear right away either during embryonic development, or early in life,” said Conboy. “To our knowledge, the oxytocin gene is the only one whose impact is seen later in life, suggesting that its role is closely linked to the aging process.”

Future treatment options

Cousin noted that oxytocin could become a viable alternative to hormone replacement therapy as a way to combat the symptoms of both female and male aging, and for long-term health. Hormone therapy did not show improvements in agility or muscle regeneration ability, and it is no longer recommended for disease prevention because research has found that the therapy’s benefits did not outweigh its health risks.

In addition to healthy muscle, oxytocin is predicted to improve bone health, and it might be important in combating obesity.

Conboy said her lab plans to examine oxytocin’s role in extending a healthy life in animals, and in conserving its beneficial anti-aging effects in humans.

She noted that there is a growing circle of scientists who believe that aging is the underlying cause of a number of chronic diseases, including Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes.

“If you target processes associated with aging, you may be tackling those diseases at the same time,” said Conboy. “Aging is a natural process, but I believe that we can meaningfully intervene with age-imposed organ degeneration, thereby slowing down the rate at which we become progressively unhealthy.”

Funding from the SENS Research Foundation, the National Institute on Aging and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine helped support this research.

RELATED INFORMATION

• Bioengineers reprogram muscles to combat degeneration (UC Berkeley press release)
• Old muscle gets new pep in UC Berkeley stem cell study (UC Berkeley press release)
• Rejuvenation of aged progenitor cells by exposure to a young systemic environment (Abstract of 2005 study in Nature)

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Music and abstract reasoning skills

Music training is far better

than computer instruction

in improving children’s

abstract reasoning skills.

Sound is a nutrient...

Boys are falling behind and dropping out of academics. Region : USA

USA: Our boys are falling behind and dropping out of academics

As boys sink further socially, so too, do they sink academically. A recent Gallup Student Poll suggests that boys have a weaker emotional connection with school as early as fifth grade, and that more than one in four boys are not engaged or actively disengaged in fifth grade.

Some researchers suggest that boys are disengaged and getting lower grades in class because our schools are not “boy-friendly.” In their book, The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann, sociology professors at Columbia and Ohio State, state that “Boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama, and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these activities are often denigrated as un-masculine.”

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, boys and men are falling behind academically and socially:

• Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to flunk or drop out of school.
• Girls outperform boys academically, from elementary school to graduate school.
• Women receive 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees now.
• Boys are five times more likely to be labeled with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).

Cognitive and Motor behavior

According to Dr. John P. Murray, “Viewing behavior in media triggers certain areas of the brain that are associated with ‘arousal/attention, detection of threat, episodic memory encoding and retrieval, and motor programming’.”

Murray’s study mapped the amygdala and related brain structures, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to ascertain the neurological changes that resulted from watching violence on television. He concluded that a relationship existed between the chemistry of the brain and violent viewing, which affected both cognitive and motor behavior.

Therefore, when boys are exposed to media violence, it becomes stored in the brain in a manner similar to post traumatic stress disorder memories. 

Exposed to media violence!

 when boys are exposed to media violence, it becomes stored in the brain in a manner similar to post traumatic stress disorder memories. Another study by Dr. Craig A. Anderson involving media violence exposure in youth, found that even short term viewing of violence can increase physical and verbal aggression, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. In fact, according to Anderson, frequent exposure to media violence in childhood can lead to aggressive behavior later in life, including physical and spousal abuse.

This research on violent viewing and its effects on children have surprisingly uncovered that chemicals, such as cortisol — that change the architecture of the brain, including impulse control — are doing so because children’s brains are actually imitating the violence that they are seeing. In a sense the mind is rehearsing and imitating the aggressive behavior viewed. As a result, aggressive behavior and aggressive responses become an acceptable option later on when children are confronted with conflict. Dr. Murray calls this brain behavior “encoding aggressive scripts,” and states that the posterior cingulate, a part of the brain that holds emotional trauma, stores these neural images and retrieves them in a manner similar to the flashbacks of traumatic memory, present in post-traumatic stress disorder. And, excessive viewing of video games also impacts brain function in a similar manner.

Access to Violence Alters Boys’ Brains

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend TED2014 and I was very excited about what psychologist Phillip Zimbardo had to say. He spoke about how men are failing socially, academically and with women. His TED talk struck a nerve with me.

The debate is on about how we as a nation are failing our boys and men, and many fingers, including Zimbardo’s, are pointing to our technology-driven society (namely violent video games and easy access to pornography) and schools that aren’t as “boy friendly.”

I agree: it is time we step up to the plate and support our boys early on, before they become disengaged men.

Our boys are immersed in technology that is altering their brains.

The shift in our culture toward increased technology time — television, video games, the Internet, and social media — is not without consequence.

Whenever you watch anything on television, your imagination pulls you into what you’re watching. As a result, you react emotionally as if whatever is happening on television is actually happening to you. Consider that the average American youth spends approximately 50 hours per week in front of some sort of screen or another, whether playing video and computer games or watching television. That’s a LOT of screen time, to say the least. Consistent exposure to violent video games, television shows, and movies, as well as pornography, can impact the brain and actually alter its architecture.

According to Dr. John P. Murray, “Viewing behavior in media triggers certain areas of the brain that are associated with ‘arousal/attention, detection of threat, episodic memory encoding and retrieval, and motor programming’.” Murray’s study mapped the amygdala and related brain structures, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to ascertain the neurological changes that resulted from watching violence on television. He concluded that a relationship existed between the chemistry of the brain and violent viewing, which affected both cognitive and motor behavior.

Therefore, when boys are exposed to media violence, it becomes stored in the brain in a manner similar to post traumatic stress disorder memories. Another study by Dr. Craig A. Anderson involving media violence exposure in youth, found that even short term viewing of violence can increase physical and verbal aggression, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. In fact, according to Anderson, frequent exposure to media violence in childhood can lead to aggressive behavior later in life, including physical and spousal abuse.

This research on violent viewing and its effects on children have surprisingly uncovered that chemicals, such as cortisol — that change the architecture of the brain, including impulse control — are doing so because children’s brains are actually imitating the violence that they are seeing. In a sense the mind is rehearsing and imitating the aggressive behavior viewed. As a result, aggressive behavior and aggressive responses become an acceptable option later on when children are confronted with conflict. Dr. Murray calls this brain behavior “encoding aggressive scripts,” and states that the posterior cingulate, a part of the brain that holds emotional trauma, stores these neural images and retrieves them in a manner similar to the flashbacks of traumatic memory, present in post-traumatic stress disorder. And, excessive viewing of video games also impacts brain function in a similar manner.

According to Dr. Vincent Matthews at Indiana University, “Behavioral studies have shown an increase in aggressive behavior after playing violent video games, and what we show is a physiological explanation for what the behavioral studies are showing.” Dr. Matthews’ research demonstrates brain changes directly related to only two hours of violent viewing daily. The brain changes that Matthew’s group saw were similar to those seen in teens with destructive sociopathic disorders.

Dr. Anderson stated, “The most recent thorough review of the research on media violence, by an expert panel convened by the U.S. surgeon general concluded, ‘Research on violent television, films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts.’ Hundreds of original empirical studies of the link between media violence and aggression have been conducted and numerous reviews of those studies-both narrative and statistical- have come to the same conclusion.” Further, they cite a finished study by Kaj Bjorkqvist in which he concluded that “even a single exposure increases aggression in the immediate situation.” And longitudinal studies demonstrate that children who played a lot of video games through childhood where more physically aggressive throughout their life.

Our boys are losing critical social skills by being tied to technology.

Throughout my experience as a researcher and educator, and based on the aforementioned scientific research, it stands to reason that the impersonal culture of the internet has the capability of blocking our nation’s boys from fulfilling their share of future leadership potential. True social interaction, necessary for adult success in work and in life, isn’t being taught to these boys because they are immersed in mostly virtual relationships without consequences. In a way, boys who spend too much time interacting only online and through video games stay immature because they don’t get to experience the real consequences of their feelings, thoughts, and actions; they don’t learn how to deal. They’re not learning the social skills one needs to succeed in the world as a functioning adult.

Our boys are falling behind and dropping out of academics

As boys sink further socially, so too, do they sink academically. A recent Gallup Student Poll suggests that boys have a weaker emotional connection with school as early as fifth grade, and that more than one in four boys are not engaged or actively disengaged in fifth grade.

Some researchers suggest that boys are disengaged and getting lower grades in class because our schools are not “boy-friendly.” In their book, The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann, sociology professors at Columbia and Ohio State, state that “Boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama, and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these activities are often denigrated as un-masculine.”

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, boys and men are falling behind academically and socially:
• Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to flunk or drop out of school.
• Girls outperform boys academically, from elementary school to graduate school.
• Women receive 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees now.
• Boys are five times more likely to be labeled with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).

What can we do about it?

• If you are the parent of a young boy in elementary or middle school, limit his screen time. Most doctors recommend no more than one or two hours per day. This includes television, cell phones, video games, and tablets.
• Know what your child is watching. Parents must parent, and that means being aware of what happens in the video games he plays and the shows he watches. It is up to you to ensure the screen time your child is exposed to is appropriate.
• Communicate with your child’s school. It is important for parents and teachers to keep open lines of communication, so that you are made aware of any changes your child exhibits at school, and you can address those changes head on before your child gets lost in the shuffle.
• Support your son’s wishes for school participation without judgment or gender bias. Encourage him to participate in music, arts, and theater programs if he shows an interest.
• Practice the empathic process. Set aside time to chat with your kids in the kitchen after school or each night, and allow them to share anything about their day with you openly, without judgment or your immediate reaction. This helps build trust, so that when any issues do come up, you know that they already have the confidence in you to share openly and honestly.
• Engage your child from a young age in play that does not involve technology. Make library, science museum, and museum of natural history visits an important part of your regular family time. Give your child free play time to help develop his imagination and hone his problem solving skills.
• Model strong in-person relationships that are rich with positive, face-to-face interactions.
• Parents should allow plenty of time for free play that does not involve technology from the time children are born. The ability to create, learn, and test boundaries within safe limits helps flex the imagination muscles in children, and real-world understanding.

We may not be able to change our education system or the video game industry overnight, but we do have some control as parents to help ensure our own sons do not fall through the cracks.

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