A study published Thursday in the journal Cell reveals that the hormone oxytocin, which stimulates social behavior in humans, may also play a particularly strong role in regulating sexual behavior in females.

Researchers of the study, led by Nathaniel Heintz of the Rockefeller University in New York, performed the experiment on a group of mice. When the team silenced the neurons that respond to oxytocin in female mice, meaning they were no longer receptive to oxytocin, they discovered that the females were no more attracted to a mate than to a block of Lego.

“Our findings suggest that social interactions that stimulate oxytocin production will recruit this newly identified circuit to help coordinate the complex behavioral responses elicited by changing social situations in all mammals, including humans,” said Heintz in a recent statement. “Future investigation of the exact mechanisms responsible for activation of this interesting circuit may provide insights into autism spectrum disorder and other social behavioral disorders.”

According to the statement, the neurons that respond to the “love hormone” oxytocin can be found in many brain structures, but researchers discovered a particularly large population of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex that expresses the oxytocin receptor. When the activity of these neurons was disrupted, female mice lost interest in male mice during estrus – the sexually receptive phase of their cycle. The females retained normal levels of social interest in males when not in estrus, as well as other females during estrus, and the social behavior of males was unaffected altogether when their neurons were disrupted.

“Our work highlights the importance of the prefrontal cortex in social and sexual behaviors and suggests that this critical cell population may mediate other aspects of behavior in response to the elevated oxytocin levels that occur in a variety of different contexts,” said Heintz.

“Oxytocin modulates female sociosexual behavior through a specific class of prefrontal cortical interneurons,” written by Miho Nakajima, Andreas Gorlich, and Nathaniel Heintz, was published in Cell on Oct. 9, 2014.