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Rewards of beauty: the opioid system mediates social motivation in humans

Molecular Psychiatry volume 19, pages 746–747 (2014)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 04 November 2014

Facial attractiveness is a powerful cue that affects social communication and motivates sexual behavior.1, 2, 3 Attractive people are both judged4 and treated5 more positively, reflecting the biased stereotypical notion that ‘beautiful is good’. Indeed, beautiful faces are processed by the limbic reward system6 and according to the same economic principles as non-social rewards.7 The human reward system has a high density of μ-opioid receptors,8 which have an important role in affiliation and attachment.9, 10, 11 Here, we causally test whether the healthy human opioid system mediates facial attractiveness preference.

In rodents, μ-opioid (MOR) neurotransmission can increase both hedonic value (‘liking’) and motivational salience (‘wanting’) of rewards.12 When several rewards are available, MOR agonism increases and antagonism decreases preference specifically for the most valuable option. For instance, rats ate fewer palatable cookies but not less standard chow after MOR antagonism,13 while MOR stimulation enhanced sexual ‘wanting’ of only estrous, but not nonestrous, females.14 We predicted that antagonism of the human opioid system would decrease, while MOR agonism would increase ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’6 specifically for the evolutionarily most valuable option, namely attractive opposite-sex faces.

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Acknowledgements

We thank MH Sneve, T Karlsson and S Aminihajibashi for technical assistance; I Olsen, L Bachs, V Vindenes and E Øiestad for pharmacological advice; J Gjerstad for help with genotyping; and Drs M Kringelbach, B Bastian, L Thomsen and G Overskeid for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. The project was funded by grant number ES455867 to S Leknes from the Research Council of Norway.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    O Chelnokova, B Laeng, M Eikemo, J Riegels, G Løseth, H Maurud & S Leknes

  2. Department of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    F Willoch & S Leknes

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  1. O Chelnokova
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  2. B Laeng
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  3. M Eikemo
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  8. S Leknes
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Correspondence to O Chelnokova or S Leknes.

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Chelnokova, O., Laeng, B., Eikemo, M. et al. Rewards of beauty: the opioid system mediates social motivation in humans. Mol Psychiatry 19, 746–747 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.1

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