ArticleEndocrinology2010
Oxytocin-dopamine interactions mediate variations in maternal behavior in the rat.
Article in Endocrinology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 162 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
162 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 366 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neurophysiological effects of acute oxytocin administration: systematic review and meta-analysis of placebo-controlled imaging studies.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2015Pooled it
- Oxytocin increases eye gaze in schizophrenia.Schizophrenia research · 2019Trial
- Electrophysiological correlates of oxytocin-induced enhancement of social performance monitoring.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2017Trial
- Intranasal Oxytocin Enhances Connectivity in the Neural Circuitry Supporting Social Motivation and Social Perception in Children with Autism.Scientific reports · 2016Trial
- The beneficial effect of oxytocin on avoidance-related facial emotion recognition depends on early life stress experience.Psychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Effects of MDMA and Intranasal oxytocin on social and emotional processing.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Neural circuits for mammalian parental behaviour.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Prenatal metabolic adversity reprograms insulin-responsive transcription in the developing nucleus accumbens.Molecular metabolism · 2026Article
- Lactation increases food seeking and palatable feeding through mesolimbic dopamine signaling in mice.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Oxytocin neurons in the anterior and posterior paraventricular nucleus have distinct behavioral functions and electrophysiological profiles.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Mesolimbic dopamine signaling mediates increased hedonic feeding and food seeking in lactating mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Increased social reward behavior in adolescent male and female rats exposed prenatally to alcohol is associated with altered dopamine receptor expression.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Exploring the relationship betweenFrontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Oxytocin neurons in the anterior and posterior paraventricular nucleus have distinct behavioral functions and electrophysiological profiles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Oxytocin receptors mediate social selectivity in prairie vole peer relationships.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Interaction Between Oxytocin and Dopamine Signaling: Focus on the Striatum.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Dopamine dynamics underlying maternal motivation and reward.Neuroscience research · 2025Review
- Persistent dopamine-dependent remodeling of the neural transcriptome in response to pregnancy and postpartum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Gestational stress disrupts dopamine and oxytocin signaling in the postpartum reward system of rats: implications for mood, motivation and mothering.Scientific reports · 2025Article
102 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Variations in maternal behavior among lactating rats associate with differences in estrogen-oxytocin interactions in the medial preoptic area (mPOA) and in dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens (nAcc). Thus, stable, individual differences in pup licking/grooming (LG) are abolished by oxytocin receptor blockade or treatments that eliminate differences in the nAcc dopamine signal. We provide novel evidence for a direct effect of oxytocin at the level of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in the regulation of nAcc dopamine levels. Mothers that exhibit consistently increased pup LG (i.e. high LG mothers) by comparison with low LG mothers show increased oxytocin expression in the mPOA and the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and increased projections of oxytocin-positive cells from both mPOA and paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus to the VTA. Direct infusion of oxytocin into the VTA increased the dopamine signal in the nAcc. Finally, high compared with low LG mothers show greater increases in dopamine signal in the nAcc during bouts of pup LG, and this difference is abolished with infusions of an oxytocin receptor antagonist directly into the VTA. These studies reveal a direct effect of oxytocin on dopamine release within the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system and are consistent with previous reports of oxytocin-dopamine interactions in the establishment and maintenance of social bonds.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.