Larry J. Young is the William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine at Emory University. Dr. Young studies how genetic, cellular and neurobiological mechanisms regulate complex social behavior, including social cognition and social bonding. His research focuses heavily on the roles of the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin in regulating the neural processing of social signals and social attachment. Dr. Young has developed behavioral paradigms that are useful for screening drugs that enhance social cognition, and the development of novel strategies for drug discovery in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Dr. Young is also the director of the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience at Emory University, which brings together scientists and clinicians in the Atlanta area who are focused on understanding and healing the human brain. Dr. Young's work has also been the subject of a National Geographic documentary.
Early life
Dr. Young grew up on a farm in a rural part of Georgia. Life in a rural town made it difficult of for him to access educational materials, so he spent most of his time observing the natural world. This experience formed his interest in the biological sciences. As an undergraduate, Dr. Young majored in Biochemistry, graduating from the University of Georgia in 1989. He went on to pursue his Ph.D at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1994 with a degree in Neuroendocrinology. He completed his post-doc studies at Emory University, focusing his research on the role and influence of genes in social expression.
While at Emory University, Dr. Young conducted experiments on prairie voles, to demonstrate the role that genes play in forming social bonds. Prairie voles were selected since different species have different mating strategies. Certain species of prairie voles are monogamous, an evolutionary response to environmental factors. While other species of prairie voles are promiscuous, a response to a lack of evolutionary and environmental stressors. To test if these evolutionary factors were responsible for the divergence of mating strategies among prairie voles, Dr. Young altered one single gene in the promiscuous species of a prairie vole. The genetic alteration changed the mating behaviour of the prairie vole, turning a once promiscuous prairie vole, monogamous. The change in mating behaviour, while genetic in nature, was caused by an increase in the receptiveness of the prairie voles brain to the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin. The results of the study generated great interest beyond the scientific community, with stories appearing in NPR and with National Geographic making a documentary on Dr. Young's work.
Publications
The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction with Brian Alexander
Neurobiological mechanisms of social attachment and pair bonding
The prairie vole: an emerging model organism for understanding the social brain
The neuroendocrinology of the social brain
Being human: love: neuroscience reveals all
Vasopressin and pair-bond formation: genes to brain to behavior
Anatomy and neurochemistry of the pair bond
The role of vasopressin in the genetic and neural regulation of monogamy
A full archive of Dr. Young's work can be found at PubMed and also on Google Scholar with each maintaining a repository of over 164 scientific articles.
