Larry Young, PhD from Emory University passed away on March 22, 2024, at the young age of 56. Dr. Young and I were scheduled to attend the Society for Social Neuroscience meeting together in Tsukuba the following week, starting from March 25, but I learned of his passing on the first day of the conference. I had known Dr. Young since we first met at an international conference in 2013, and we traveled together both in Japan and abroad almost every year after attending conferences, except during the COVID period. I particularly remember when we went to collect wild medaka at Okayama Prefecture in 2015. At last year's Japan Neuroscience Society meeting, we had the opportunity to invite him as a keynote speaker in Sendai, and he had just begun to expand his interactions with Japanese neuroscientists.

Dr. Young was a true pioneer and leader in social neuroscience, and an exceptional person not only as a researcher but also as a human being. Many people, including myself, were encouraged by him and felt that we could courageously pursue the research we believed in. From a young age, Dr. Young took a comparative biological approach, obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 on the topic of pseudosexual behavior in parthenogenetic lizards (C. uniparens). Although this lizard species consists only of females and reproduces through parthenogenesis, Dr. Young reported that they exhibit behaviors typical of both male and female sexual behavior (pseudosexual behavior). From his student days, he focused on the unique sexual behavior of animals and pioneered original research fields by discerning the characteristics of animals. After joining Emory University in 1996, he began groundbreaking research on monogamous prairie voles. Prairie voles are rodents found in the midwestern United States. Because they are often caught in traps as pairs in the wild, they were thought to have very strong pair bonds, and Dr. Young said he chose them as research subjects. Since then, Dr. Young dedicated himself to understanding the mechanisms that control pair bonding, particularly elucidating the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in the formation and maintenance of pair bonds, and pioneered a new field that combines comparative (evolutionary) biology and neuroscience. In recent years, it has been shown that oxytocin is involved in social cognition and social decision-making from fish to humans, having a major impact on various fields, including basic biological sciences and psychiatric research. Currently, Dr. Young has published over 200 peer-reviewed original papers and reviews, including high-impact journals such as Science and Nature. His research papers have been cited over 45,000 times worldwide. His book "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction," which has been translated into Japanese, explores the latest findings on how brain chemicals influence every aspect of our interpersonal relationships.

At Emory University, he was the William P. Timmie Professor in the Emory University School of Medicine (SOM), Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and served as the Chief of the Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychiatric Disorders at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, while also serving as the Director of the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience and the Silvio O. Conte Center for Oxytocin and Social Cognition. He also held a joint appointment as a professor at the University of Tsukuba and established the Center for Social Neural Networks, having a significant impact on the Japanese community. He was actively proposing new strategies for the treatment of psychiatric disorders by applying the findings of his basic research, and his further achievements were highly anticipated.

His sudden death was unexpected to everyone, and I myself am still in deep sadness, unable to fully accept the reality. However, remembering how Dr. Young always warmly stayed close to our hearts, I would now like to express my sincerest gratitude and pray for his happiness in the afterlife.