Larry J. Young, PhD
Miranda M. Lim 1,2, Zuoxin Wang 3 , Geert de Vries 4 and H. Elliott Albers 4
1 Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon USA
2 VA Portland Heath Care System, Portland, Oregon USA
3 Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida USA
4 Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia USA
In late March 2024, the scientific community got the gut-wrenching news of the unexpected passing of Dr. Larry J. Young, William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory School of Medicine, a mere few hours before he was to kick off the 2024 meeting of the Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN) in Tsukuba, Japan, a society of which Larry was a founding member. With his passing, the meeting now afforded an immediate opportunity to mourn, process, and reminisce, but also to inspire, synthesize, and galvanize the scientific community to achieve a grander scientific vision -- one that Larry would certainly have shared.
When Larry founded S4SN, it was initially held as a satellite meeting to Society for Neuroscience (SFN). While Larry’s original background in comparative ethology set him up to study non-traditional species, he was a molecular neuroscientist at heart, and brought comparative neurobiology to the forefront of SFN’s most cutting-edge research.
Comparative neurobiology has been the hallmark of Larry’s career. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1989 with a degree in Biochemistry, one of the first in his family from a rural town in the south of Georgia to attend college. As an undergraduate student, he conducted research with Dr. Joe Crim on mosquitoes. Joe, a close colleague of Dr. David Crews at the University of Texas at Austin, sent David a letter extolling Larry’s virtues. During his interview at UT Austin, Larry told David that he only applied to one graduate program and only to work with David. He had read the Crews & Moore’s 1986 Science paper on the ‘Evolution of mechanisms controlling mating behavior’ (Crews and Moore, 1986), and was poised to ask and answer big questions such as “what is the relationship between genes, brain, and behavior?” “How do these behaviorcontrolling mechanisms evolve?” You might say the rest is history.
Larry loved going into the field every May-June. He adapted immediately to the Crews Lab routine at the Southwestern Research Station -- grueling conditions in the scorching desert for 6 hours every day but the rest of the time being a slug with periodic ‘plasma’ infusions (i.e., beer). Over three field seasons, he obtained unisexual whiptail lizards and males and females of the sexually reproducing ancestral little striped lizards. At the home base in UT Austin, he used his creativity to break new ground in the field of comparative neuroendocrinology. He skipped over the massive problem that heterologous antibodies to sex hormone receptors of mammals and birds didn’t work in reptiles by using homologous RNA probes that he had somehow figured to clone, a state-of-the-art approach at the time. He used these probes to visualize, map, and measure steroid receptor expression in the brain of his wild-caught lizards, thereby affording the field with novel perspectives and insights into the actions of progesterone on the brain (Young et al., 1994).
After receiving a PhD in Zoology in 1994, he switched to studying genes, brain, and behavior in mammals. Although he bid poikilotherms farewell, the combination of cutting-edge research and fun assimilated in the Crews lab and his laser focus on the benefits of studying non-traditional species had become firmly engrained in Larry’s scientific psyche.
Larry did his one and only postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, working with Dr. Thomas Insel, who had recently moved from the NIMH. Tom brought with him a prairie vole model developed by the early pioneering work of Dr. Sue Carter. At Emory, Larry worked closely with Dr. Zuoxin Wang and Dr. Jim Winslow where the three of them conducted comparative studies 2 with multiple vole species (Microtus ochrogaster, M. montanus, M. pennsylvanicus) as well as monogamous marmosets and non-monogamous macaques. Using receptor autoradiography paired with novel (at the time) in situ hybridization approaches to map protein and mRNA, the team found that species differences in oxytocin and vasopressin receptor distribution aligned markedly well with differences in social behavior, suggesting convergent evolution of the use of ancient reward circuits in facilitating monogamous social structure (Young et al., 1996; Young et al., 1997). While shared interests in social behavior provided synergy for the team to explore the role of neuropeptides, including oxytocin and vasopressin, on social behaviors, Larry played a key role for introducing molecular approaches in the investigation.
In 1996, Larry received his first solo PI grant from the NIH, a First Award (R29), and was subsequently appointed as Assistant Professor at Emory. He was only 29 years old, but had the maturity of vision, work ethic, research skills, collaborative spirit, and leadership to rapidly establish his own lab and run with it. In 1999, Larry welcomed his first three PhD students: Heather Patisaul (co-mentored with Dr. Patricia Whitten), Miranda Lim, and Elizabeth Hammock. By the time these first three students defended, his lab was publishing in top tier journals, including Nature, Science, Neuron, and of course, SFN’s flagship journal, Journal of Neuroscience. His PhD students pioneered cutting edge molecular techniques in prairie and meadow voles, including viral vector gene transfer of vasopressin V1a receptors (V1aR), microsatellite sequencing of promotor regions for avp1ar, and using transgenic knockout mice to understand the roles of oxytocin (OT), OTR, and V1aR in social behavior (Bielsky et al., 2004; Hammock and Young, 2005; Lim et al., 2004; Pitkow et al., 2001; Ross et al., 2009; Takayanagi et al., 2005; Winslow et al., 2000). By 2005, his lab was exploding at the seams, with a total of six PhD students, two Master’s students, and two post-doctoral fellows, Steven Phelps and Darlene Francis. Word was spreading that Larry’s brand of science was hot, and Larry himself was proving to be a more than capable mentor whose trainees routinely published rigorous and broad reaching findings.
Larry was a superb mentor. Over his 25+ years as a PI, Larry led an outstanding group of 26 graduate students and 19 postdocs through their journeys of scientific discovery. Larry’s trainees are located all over the world, and many have made and are making their own substantial contributions to the field and continue to collaborate scientifically with each other. His trainees all appreciated that Larry was not only a smart, quickwitted scientist and brilliant experimentalist, but was also a gifted writer, speaker, storyteller, and kindly father figure. Larry’s human side is what will be missed most. His down-to-earth demeanor, humility, and gentle awkwardness, as well as lightheartedness and sense of humor, made science approachable and fun.
Larry had continuous NIH funding from NIMH for his entire career, and support expanded to include a diversified portfolio that belied the transdisciplinary nature of his work. His belief in team science led to his creation of THREE major research centers in his short career: the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience, the Conti Center, and the Center for Social Neural Networks. He was instrumental in the early founding of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, an NSF-funded Center that integrated faculty and trainees across several Atlanta area institutions, including HBCUs. He also was integral to many other substantial team research efforts, such as a Templeton Foundation grant to study the prosocial brain and its capacity for empathy, compassion and cooperation. Larry strongly believed in service to the field, contributing to numerous editorial activities including as associated editor on four journals and editorial board member for seven journals.
The impact of Larry’s research is reflected in his h-index (112 at the moment) and the total number of citations to his work (nearly 50,000). Larry’s work was also of great interest to the lay public and was often featured in outlets such as CNN, NPR, and the BBC to name just a few examples. Media coverage was important to Larry, and he encouraged it not because of his vanity but because he was committed to bringing science into public awareness. This led him to write a popular book, ‘The Chemistry Between Us,’ bringing a new understanding of love, sex, and attraction to the lay public. Connecting with the public changed peoples’ life. In 2018, Rev. Patti Ricotta, a minister who leads a faith-based organization known for uprooting harmful cultural practices, recruited Larry to visit African teachers, community councilors, clergy and their spouses to campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM). Larry gave lay lectures on his research on social bonds – arguing against the fear-based belief that FGM was the only way to ensure faithfulness in marriage. Larry said, “Seeing firsthand how love and bonding research is eliminating harmful cultural practices and improving lives and communities has been life-changing for me. I shared the results of my research studies in animals and how 3 those findings relate to humans but was careful not to impose any values on them or tell anyone what to do. My goal was to share my knowledge about neurochemistry and science, and then allow them to make decisions based on facts. I can’t wait to get back to Africa and help even more.”
Despite being in a position of enormous influence, Larry was never caught up in the rat race that science can sometimes be. He was generous with his ideas and did not worry about being scooped. He did not take science, or life for that matter, too seriously. He used this generous and collaborative nature to build and inspire entire networks -- large communities of trainees and scientists who enjoy working together, who continue to share hotel rooms every year together at SFN, who continue to collaborate decades after first meeting in his lab. In all of his far-reaching endeavors, Larry embraced the opportunity to travel far and wide to meet new scientific collaborators and immerse himself in new adventures: from eating massive bugs during a research trip to Madagascar to spending two weeks in India teaching neuroscience to Tibetan monks.
Larry’s life was truly influential to the field of behavioral neuroscience, both in terms of his science and his service. In addition to being a career-long member of SFN, in further recognition of his efforts, he was an elected Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS). He was also a terrific role model and great friend for people near him. He mattered greatly to his students, colleagues, friends, his children, and to his loving wife and life partner, Dr. Anne Z. Murphy. Larry would frequently start his talks by showing a picture of him and Anne being married, as a natural segue into a discussion of love and bonding. Larry’s communities continue to live on - they are self-sustaining, they serve as a source of joy, worldwide, in our shared mission to conduct social neuroscience research in his generous and collaborative way.
References
Bielsky, I.F., Hu, S.B., Szegda, K.L., Westphal, H., Young, L.J., 2004. Profound impairment in social recognition and reduction in anxiety-like behavior in vasopressin V1a receptor knockout mice. Neuropsychopharmacology 29, 483-493.
Crews, D., Moore, M.C., 1986. Evolution of mechanisms controlling mating behavior. Science 231, 121-125.
Hammock, E.A., Young, L.J., 2005. Microsatellite instability generates diversity in brain and sociobehavioral traits. Science 308, 1630-1634.
Lim, M.M., Wang, Z., Olazábal, D.E., Ren, X., Terwilliger, E.F., Young, L.J., 2004. Enhanced partner preference in a promiscuous species by manipulating the expression of a single gene. Nature 429, 754-757.
Lim, M.M., Young, L.J., 2006. Neuropeptidergic regulation of affiliative behavior and social bonding in animals. Horm Behav 50, 506-517.
Pitkow, L.J., Sharer, C.A., Ren, X., Insel, T.R., Terwilliger, E.F., Young, L.J., 2001. Facilitation of affiliation and pair-bond formation by vasopressin receptor gene transfer into the ventral forebrain of a monogamous vole. J Neurosci 21, 7392- 7396.
Ross, H.E., Freeman, S.M., Spiegel, L.L., Ren, X., Terwilliger, E.F., Young, L.J., 2009. Variation in oxytocin receptor density in the nucleus accumbens has differential effects on affiliative behaviors in monogamous and polygamous voles. J Neurosci 29, 1312-1318.
Takayanagi, Y., Yoshida, M., Bielsky, I.F., Ross, H.E., Kawamata, M., Onaka, T., Yanagisawa, T., Kimura, T., Matzuk, M.M., Young, L.J., Nishimori, K., 2005. Pervasive social deficits, but normal parturition, in oxytocin receptor-deficient mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102, 16096-16101.
Winslow, J.T., Hearn, E.F., Ferguson, J., Young, L.J., Matzuk, M.M., Insel, T.R., 2000. Infant vocalization, adult aggression, and fear behavior of an oxytocin null mutant mouse. Horm Behav 37, 145-155.
Young, L.J., Huot, B., Nilsen, R., Wang, Z., Insel, T.R., 1996. Species differences in central oxytocin receptor gene expression: comparative analysis of promoter sequences. J Neuroendocrinol 8, 777-783.
Young, L.J., Lopreato, G.F., Horan, K., Crews, D., 1994. Cloning and in situ hybridization analysis of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and androgen receptor expression in the brain of whiptail lizards (Cnemidophorus uniparens and C. inornatus). J Comp Neurol 347, 288-300.
Young, L.J., Winslow, J.T., Nilsen, R., Insel, T.R., 1997. Species differences in V1a receptor gene expression in monogamous and nonmonogamous voles: behavioral consequences. Behav Neurosci 111, 599-605.
