ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2016
Hormonal contraceptives suppress oxytocin-induced brain reward responses to the partner's face.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 115 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of intranasal oxytocin on social reward processing in humans: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Hormonal contraceptives and the brain: A systematic review on 60 years of neuroimaging, EEG, and biochemical studies in humans and animals.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2023Pooled it
- The Effects of Hormonal Contraceptives on the Brain: A Systematic Review of Neuroimaging Studies.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- Oxytocin effects on amygdala reactivity to angry faces in males and females with antisocial personality disorder.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Effects of exogenous oxytocin and estradiol on resting-state functional connectivity in women and men.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Preliminary data on oxytocin modulation of neural reactivity in women to emotional stimuli of children depending on childhood emotional neglect.Developmental psychobiology · 2023Trial
- Eye-Tracking Reveals a Role of Oxytocin in Attention Allocation Towards Familiar Faces.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Trial
- Investigating resting brain perfusion abnormalities and disease target-engagement by intranasal oxytocin in women with bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder and healthy controls.Translational psychiatry · 2020Trial
- Kinetics of oxytocin effects on amygdala and striatal reactivity vary between women and men.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Common and dissociable effects of oxytocin and lorazepam on the neurocircuitry of fear.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Trial
- Oxytocin increases eye-gaze towards novel social and non-social stimuli.Social neuroscience · 2019Trial
- Oxytocin enhances the pain-relieving effects of social support in romantic couples.Human brain mapping · 2019Trial
- How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.Human brain mapping · 2017Trial
- Intranasal oxytocin increases neural responses to social reward in post-traumatic stress disorder.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2017Trial
- Oxytocin enhances cognitive control of food craving in women.Human brain mapping · 2016Trial
- Hormonal contraceptive use is associated with love intensity across 51 countries.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Ovarian hormones, hormonal contraceptives and reward processing.BJPsych advances · 2026Article
- Reduced neural specificity for a romantic partner in the nucleus accumbens over relationship duration.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- How does oxytocin modulate human behavior?Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- A review of the effects of different types of social behaviors on the recruitment of neuropeptides and neurotransmitters in the nucleus accumbens.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The hypothalamic peptide oxytocin (OXT) has been identified as a key modulator of pair-bonding in men, but its effects in women are still elusive. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that hormonal contraception (HC) influences partner preferences and sexual satisfaction, which constitute core domains of OXT function. We thus hypothesized that OXT effects on partner-related behavioral and neural responses could be significantly altered in women using HC. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study involving 40 pair-bonded women, 21 of whom were using HC, we investigated whether a 24-IU nasal dose of OXT would modulate brain reward responses evoked by the romantic partner's face relative to the faces of familiar and unfamiliar people. Treatment with OXT increased the perceived attractiveness of the partner relative to other men, which was paralleled by elevated responses in reward-associated regions, including the nucleus accumbens. These effects of OXT were absent in women using HC. Our results confirm and extend previous findings in men that OXT interacts with the brain reward system to reinforce partner value representations, indicating a common OXT-dependent mechanism underlying partner attraction in both sexes. This mechanism may be disturbed in women using HC, suggesting that gonadal steroids could alter partner-specific OXT effects.
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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.