How to get over a breakup according to the most monogamous animal

At best, it gives clues on how to get over a breakup.

At worst, it's a small metaphor about love and oblivion.

A study conducted with prairie voles has shown that these rodents experience an explosion of dopamine, the pleasure hormone, when they are reunited with their partner.

However, after a period of separation, the effect diminishes.

In short, over time, mice get over their ex.

But they don't forget it.

“We know that they remember their partner, even after not seeing them for four weeks,” explains Zoe Donaldson, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of the work.

They behave as if they know her, but her reaction, at a neuronal level, is not the same.

After a month of no contact, they don't feel the same urge to mate or snuggle.

It is a considerably long period of time, considering that their life expectancy is about two years.

“This is similar to what happens to us humans: we do not forget those we love after they are gone, although what they mean, their place in our daily lives, has to be relocated.”

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The behavior of prairie voles (

Microtus ochrogaster

) began to attract scientific attention in the 1970s, when, in an experiment at the University of Illinois, they saw that there was a species of mouse that fell into traps in pairs. two.

In couples.

It was then discovered that this species maintains monogamous and exclusive relationships throughout its life, unlike its relatives, the prairie dogs.

It is estimated that only 3% of mammals are monogamous.

Since then, this small rodent has become the unit of measurement of love in science.

In different studies it has been proven that these animals share the care of their offspring or that they feel empathy towards their partner.

They get stressed when she gets stressed and try to cheer her up with physical contact.

Many, after becoming widowed, remain alone until their death.

Most of the analyzes carried out until now had focused on the initial phase of falling in love, which has been more reflected not only by cinema, but by science.

“It's, let's say, the most fun part of researching, hedonic infatuation,” Dr. Donaldson concedes.

But her study, published this month in the journal

Current Biology

, stands out for having analyzed stable love and how it erodes over time and distance.

After the phase of falling in love comes serene love.

“It builds the foundation where you start to associate a person… Well, or a vole… With this really pleasurable and satisfying experience,” she explains.

Over time, relationships stabilize.

Lovers begin to build a routine.

They share a mortgage or a burrow.

“And the partner becomes an important source of reward, motivation and support,” says the expert.

“We wanted to know what the role of dopamine is in maintaining these bonds.”

Prairie voles are one of the few faithful mammal species.Nature

To find out, his team isolated a lovesick vole in a cage.

This had two transparent doors and two levers.

By activating one, he opened a door and could reach his partner.

Activating another, to an unknown specimen.

They discovered that the rodents released more dopamine in the first case than in the second.

They also cuddled more with their partner when they met, and when doing so they experienced a greater increase in dopamine in the nucleus

accumbens

(the area of ​​the brain responsible for managing the reward circuit).

“We believe this enhanced dopamine release helps keep bonds alive over time, motivating couples to reunite when they are far from each other,” explains Donaldson.

Although these effects are mitigated with time and distance.

To the point where the loving vole overcomes the absence of his ex and is available to start a new life.

“They can form a new bond after this change in dopamine dynamics, something they do not do while the previous bond is still intact,” the doctor points out.

That's why Donaldson describes the phenomenon as a way to "get over a breakup."

Applicable to people?

The study could be relevant to understanding how people overcome loss.

Especially in the case of patients with prolonged grief disorder, who find it difficult to deal with these situations.

According to Donaldson, this is because the dopaminergic signal generated by the partner may not adapt after the loss, which would hinder the healing process.

Prairie voles are not exactly like people.

They do not cheat, nor do they deconstruct themselves to try new relational models, combat monotony or practice polyamory.

“It is true that human beings are capable of having a wide range of relationships and types of families,” Donaldson acknowledges.

“But the important thing is that we, like them, can form lasting bonds as a couple.

And we likely use many of the same neurobiological mechanisms to do so.”

Diego Redolar, professor of Psychobiology and Neurosciences at the Oberta University of Catalonia and researcher at Cognitive NeuroLaB, values ​​the study, with which he has no relationship, very positively.

But he is more cautious about drawing parallels with human behavior.

“Our establishment of bonds can be explained in part by the dopamine that is secreted in the

accumbens

”, He explains.

“But it is much more complex.

“Oxytocin and vasopressin also play a very important role.”

Furthermore, human behavior is not based on instincts alone.

“In the prefrontal cortex of the brain, an activity occurs that allows us to adapt our response to the ethical and regulatory environment in which we live,” he clarifies.

Therefore, even if he secretes dopamine like a prairie vole, a person is not going to try to snuggle and mate with his ex on sight like these do.

It's something more complex.

“We may have a spike of dopamine in the nucleus

accumbens

that drives us to a certain mating or bonding stimulus, but the prefrontal cortex will allow us to adapt that response.”

Although the response is different, the stimulus is similar.

And the lessons learned by these scientists in the world of voles have a clear translation to human couple relationships.

“We are social animals and the bond between a couple is one of the strongest that we are going to create,” says couples psychologist Lorenlay Fraile.

Therefore, when a relationship breaks down, zero contact is decisive.

“An emotional dependency is created and when you break it you enter a period of abstinence.

You're not going to give the alcoholic a drink;

If you are quitting tobacco, you are not going to smoke two cigarettes on Mondays and Wednesdays.

That hooks you more, it means intermittent reinforcement,” says the expert.

The same thing happens with love.

“When a relationship ends, grief appears and it takes a period to adjust.

It is very difficult to do it if you are in contact with the person you have left.”

Over time, explains Fraile, the bond with the ex-partner weakens, just as happens to prairie voles.

The solution is not as easy as pressing a lever and having a door open with a new partner.

The time to overcome it will be more than the four weeks indicated in the study.

But, at the brain and neuronal level, the mechanism is very similar.

In love and forgetfulness, we are like prairie voles.

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