Mar 20, 2014 02:11 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

A "love hormone" may be able to protect against addiction, scientists from the University of Adelaide in Australia contend.

Researchers  say addictive behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse could be a result of the poor development of the oxytocin hormone during early childhood. They suggest that people's lack of resilience to addictive behaviors may be linked to this hormone.

The idea was recently published in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Oxytocin is known as the "love hormone" because of it important role in enhancing social interactions, maternal behavior and partnership. Oxytocin could also reduce the pleasure of drugs and feeling of stress.

"We know that newborn babies already have levels of oxytocin in their bodies, and this helps to create the all-important bond between a mother and her child. But our oxytocin systems aren't fully developed when we're born - they don't finish developing until the age of three, which means our systems are potentially subject to a range of influences both external and internal," researcher Dr. Femke Buisman-Pijlman said in a statement.

She added that the oxytocin system develops mainly based genetics, gender, environment and experiences.

"You can't change the genes you're born with, but environmental factors play a substantial role in the development of the oxytocin system until our systems are fully developed," Buisman-Pijlman said.

Buisman-Pijlman also said she believes that adversity in early life is linked to the impaired development of the oxytocin system.

"This adversity could take the form of a difficult birth, disturbed bonding or abuse, deprivation, or severe infection, to name just a few factors," she added.

Previous research have shown that some risk factors for drug addiction already exist at four years of age, and since the oxytocin system finishes developing at around age three, a critical window that could be studied, Buisman-Pijlman added.

"Understanding what occurs with the oxytocin system during the first few years of life could help us to unravel this aspect of addictive behavior and use that knowledge for treatment and prevention," Buisman-Pijlman said.

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