It’s easy to assume your cat doesn’t care about you. They present as fiercely independent, but it’s all a lie. They depend on your guidance, leadership, and knowledge of how to open the cabinet to get their food. According to science, under that stoic, bread-loaf exterior lies a chemical dependency: you and your cat are tripping on oxytocin together.
Not to be confused with OxyContin, the highly addictive opioid, Oxytocin is the so-called “love hormone.” It gets released when someone hugs you, cradles you in their loving arms, or provides any kind of physical affection.
Writing in The Conversation, Senior lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation at the College of Health and Life Sciences at London South Bank University, Laura Elin Pigott, says your brain also fires off oxytocin when you pet your cat. Or when the damn thing lets you pet them. It’s not only releasing in our brains when we pet our cats, but the cats’ brains are getting doused in oxytocin, too.
Recent studies show that mutual affection between humans and cats triggers a rise in oxytocin, the same neurochemical responsible for bonding between parents and children.
Even though it turns out that cats are chemically capable of loving us back, they only want that love on their terms. Anyone who’s had the misfortune of petting a cat into a squinty-eyed, purring stupor knows this firsthand. One minute you’re bonding, the next your hand is bitten and clawed to a bloody pulp when the cat suddenly decides they’ve had enough affection and now must react violently to the hand that was just euphorically petting them.
Dogs are already known to engage in oxytocin feedback loops with humans. To put it politely, cats are more, let’s say, emotionally cryptic. If I wanted to be frank about it, they’re assholes when it comes to expressions of affection.
Researchers used to assume they were too aloof for oxytocin. That turned out to be untrue. They get as much out of it as we and dogs do; they just don’t want too much of it. They want to maintain a healthy distance.
Some rubs and cuddles at their request aren’t the only way cats show affection. They have a whole language: the slow blink, the nudge, purring. The purr is kind of a superpower in itself. It doesn’t just tell you that the cat trusts you, it has the added effect of lowering your cortisol, thus calming your nervous system and spiking your production of oxytocin.
That purr is like a little vibration that shakes loose the good chemicals with good vibrations. When a cat curls up on your lap and starts to purr, it’s not just cuteness and comfort; it turns out it’s also chemistry.
The post Cat Owners Are Getting High on Love Hormones appeared first on VICE.
