Researchers from the University of Warwick, in collaboration with other universities and institutes in Edinburgh, France and Italy, have for the first time been able to show exactly how, when a baby suckles at a mother's breast, it starts a chain of events that leads to surges of the "trust" hormone oxytocin being released in their mothers brains, helps to strengthen the bond between mother and child, but to have these effects, a very large amount must be released abruptly to cause a wave of the hormone that can spread through the brain.
However the researchers have now shown that the release of oxytocin from the dendrites allows a massive increase in communication between the neurons. This co-ordinates a "swarm" of oxytocin factories, producing massive intense bursts of oxytocin release at intervals of around 5 minutes or so.
The synchronous activation of the few thousand oxytocin producing neurons is an example of "emergent" process.
"We knew that these pulses arise because, during suckling, oxytocin neurons fire together in dramatic synchronized bursts.”
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