As a taste of things to come. 🙂
For your Friday Weird Science, I present to you a Poem! And I shall call it “Prairie Voles in Love: An Ode to Oxytocin”
Out on the lonely prairie, gazing at the stars above
I saw through the night
the wondrous sight
Of prairie voles in love
‘Twas truly a miracle to see
this display of monogamy
Monogamy, subject of vast debates
In only 3{9f43b4361d9a125bc126dd2a2d1949be02545ec69880430bc4fed2272fd72da3} of mammals, mostly primates
But here on the prairie, in burrows and holes
whole colonies of uxorious voles!
But who could love a prairie vole?
More handsome is a lump of coal!
The rodents are small,
hairy, buck-toothed and all
Though whiskers are cute, with bright eyes above,
That’s a face only a mother could love!
Alas, love is not for their minds to control
The hormones must their hearts console
The posterior pituitary is something great
For forming pair-bonds with your chosen mate!
And for voles together through thick and thin
There is nothing better than oxytocin.
The posterior pituiary, the neurohypophysis
The place the love glow from pair-bonding is.
Without oxytocin, the voles just get laid
There is nothing from which pairings can be made.
The females needed oxytocin for when the morning came
Or male voles were kicked out, to do the walk of shame.
But it turns out that oxytocin is just for a girl
The boys need vasopressin to make their toes curl
ADH can turn those dead-beat dads
who otherwise would be bounders and cads
into a model husband, father, and mate
who any smart girl vole would kill to date.
No miracle, this monogamous bliss
So when your lover walks out
Don’t waste time, scream, or shout,
Look to your neurohypophysis!
I am a HUGE geek. I know. Even my advisor tells me so. Ack! I’m still rhyming!!
Insel, T.R., Winslow, J.R., Wang, Z.X., Young, L., Hulihan, T.J. (1995). Oxytocin and the molecular basis of monogamy. Advances in Experimental and Medical Biology, 395(1), 227-234.
