Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Scientists have pinpointed how a key hormone helps animals to recognize others by their smell.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have shown that the hormone Arginine vasopressin (AVP) helps the brain differentiate between familiar and new scents. The ability to recognize others by smell is crucial in helping animals to establish strong bonds with other animals.

The study in the journal Nature suggests that when the hormone fails to function, animals can't recognize other individuals from their scent.

The research may offer clues about the way people make emotional connections with others through smell and deepen our understanding of the role scent plays in memory.

The researchers reached their conclusion by studying the way rats familiarise themselves with other rats through smell.

• They placed an adult rat in an enclosure with a baby rat and left them to sniff and interact with each other.
  
  
• After a short separation, they placed the baby back in the adult's enclosure, together with an unknown baby.
  
  
• Adult rats whose vasopressin had been blocked failed to recognize the baby they had already met.

Professor Mike Ludwig, who led the study at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This study gives us a window into understanding the biological basis of social interactions. It may be that vasopressin helps to filter sensory information according to its emotional significance."

Professor Janet Allen, BBSRC Director of Research said, "Research that helps us to gain a fundamental understanding of how our brains work is vital if we are to know what is happening when something has gone wrong."

"The biological basis of psychological responses can often be extremely complicated, so finding this direct relationship between a hormone and a psycho-social phenomenon could open up a whole wealth of knowledge in this area."

FundingThe Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded the research.

CitationAn intrinsic vasopressin system in the olfactory bulb is involved in social recognition. Vicky A. Tobin, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Douglas W. Wacker, Yuki Takayanagi, Kristina Langnaese, Celine Caquineau, Julia Noack, Rainer Landgraf, Tatsushi Onaka, Gareth Leng, Simone L. Meddle, Mario Engelmann, and Mike Ludwig. Nature 2010; ePub ahead of print. doi:10.1038/nature08826.

Abstract

Many peptides, when released as chemical messengers within the brain, have powerful influences on complex behaviours. Most strikingly, vasopressin and oxytocin, once thought of as circulating hormones whose actions were confined to peripheral organs, are now known to be released in the brain, where they have fundamentally important roles in social behaviours. In humans, disruptions of these peptide systems have been linked to several neurobehavioural disorders, including Prader–Willi syndrome, affective disorders and obsessive–compulsive disorder, and polymorphisms of V1a vasopressin receptor have been linked to autism. Here we report that the rat olfactory bulb contains a large population of interneurons which express vasopressin, that blocking the actions of vasopressin in the olfactory bulb impairs the social recognition abilities of rats and that vasopressin agonists and antagonists can modulate the processing of information by olfactory bulb neurons. The findings indicate that social information is processed in part by a vasopressin system intrinsic to the olfactory system.

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