ReviewFrontiers in pharmacology2018
The Associations Between Oxytocin and Trauma in Humans: A Systematic Review.
Review in Frontiers in pharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 105 citations in OpenAlex.
- Oxytocin dysfunction in severe mental illnesses following adverse childhood experiences: a systematic review.BMC psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The effect of intranasal oxytocin on social reward processing in humans: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Oxytocin levels in individuals with schizophrenia are high in cerebrospinal fluid but low in serum: A systematic review and meta-analysis : Oxytocin and Schizophrenia.Metabolic brain disease · 2021Pooled it
- Intranasal oxytocin modulates brain activity during emotional processing in children with treatment resistant conduct problems.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Effects of intranasal oxytocin on fear extinction learning.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Oxytocin vs. placebo effects on intrusive memory consolidation using a trauma film paradigm: a randomized, controlled experimental study in healthy women.Translational psychiatry · 2023Trial
- Intranasal oxytocin administration impacts the acquisition and consolidation of trauma-associated memories: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled experimental study in healthy women.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Effects of oxytocin administration on fear-potentiated acoustic startle in co-occurring PTSD and alcohol use disorder: A randomized clinical trial.Psychiatry research · 2022Trial
- Oxytocin, PTSD, and sexual abuse are associated with attention network intrinsic functional connectivity.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2021Trial
- Acute effects of oxytocin in music performance anxiety: a crossover, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.Psychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- An epistasis between dopaminergic and oxytocinergic systems confers risk of post-traumatic stress disorder in a traumatized Chinese cohort.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Effects of Oxytocin Administration on Cue-Induced Craving in Co-occurring Alcohol Use Disorder and PTSD: A Within-Participant Randomized Clinical Trial.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2019Trial
- Oxytocin attenuates fear learning via enhancing somatostatin interneuron-mediated local GABAergic inhibition in the prelimbic cortex.Science advances · 2026Article
- Article
- Methylome-Wide Association Studies of Physical Injury Stratified by Depression Status Assesses Exposure by Diagnosis Effects in Oxytocin Signaling and Synaptic Plasticity.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Distinct effects of fibromyalgia pain, depression and anxiety on perception of affective touch and pain.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Review
- MASSAG model: Towards an integrative neuroscience framework linking emotional trauma, pain, and mechanisms of force-based manipulations.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Advancing Drug Discovery with AI: Machine and Deep Learning Strategies for Target Identification and Precision Nanomedicine.International journal of nanomedicine · 2026Review
- Before pregnancy trauma primes oxytocin receptor expression in placenta during superstorm sandy.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Studies have shown that traumatic experiences may affect hormonal systems mediated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the oxytocinergic system. This effect is the result of long-term impairments in hypothalamic structures and negative feedback mechanisms within the HPA axis, structures that mediate the response to stress. This deregulation reduces the production and release of cortisol and oxytocin (OXT), which may alter stress responses and lead to increased vulnerability to impairments from stressful experiences. The presence of gene polymorphisms might also have an impact on the vulnerability to psychopathology. We made a systematic review of articles dealing with the relationship between OXT and traumatic emotional experiences in humans. Thirty-five studies were reviewed and significant associations between experiences of emotional trauma (ET) and OXT were found. The main results showed that the presence of ET and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is strongly associated with reductions in endogenous OXT, and also that the acute effects of OXT administrations in individuals with ET tend to be anxiolytic only in less severe forms. In victims of recent traumatic experiences (RTE), OXT increased the re-experience of traumas and restored the function of different neural networks associated with fear control/extinction in PTSD patients. The results available also suggest that gene receptor polymorphisms may have a protective function in different outcomes after the experience of traumatic events. We conclude that the relationship between ET and OXT is multifaceted, complex, and mediated by contextual and individual factors. Directions for future studies are suggested considering the gaps in the available literature.
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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.