ReviewNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2019
Sex-dependent regulation of social reward by oxytocin: an inverted U hypothesis.
Review in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.
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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
51 citing papers in PubMed, 117 citations in OpenAlex.
- Random forest and Shapley Additive exPlanations predict oxytocin targeted effects on brain functional networks involved in salience and sensorimotor processing, in a randomized clinical trial in autism.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Temporal profile of intranasal oxytocin in the human autonomic nervous system at rest: An electrocardiography and pupillometry study.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Trial
- In the nose or on the tongue? Contrasting motivational effects of oral and intranasal oxytocin on arousal and reward during social processing.Translational psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Preliminary evidence that oxytocin does not improve mentalizing in women with schizophrenia.Hormones and behavior · 2021Trial
- Oxytocin and vasopressin modulation of prisoner's dilemma strategies.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 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
- Effects of Oxytocin on Placebo and Nocebo Effects in a Pain Conditioning Paradigm: A Randomized Controlled Trial.The journal of painTrial
- Early life adversity shapes neural and behavioural responses to oxytocin during altruistic decision-making.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Associations between anterior hypothalamic subunits and ADHD and autistic traits revealed by deep learning MRI segmentation.Discover mental health · 2026Article
- Sex-specific regulation of social play in juvenile rats by oxytocin neurons in the hypothalamus and oxytocin signaling in the nucleus accumbens.Hormones and behavior · 2026Article
- Medial prefrontal cortex neurons integrate amygdala and hypothalamic oxytocin signals to mediate stress-induced social alterations.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Dose-dependent anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects of chronic oxytocin in corticosterone-induced female mouse model of anxiety and depression.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2026Article
- Three-dimensional quantification of oxytocin neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus reveals sex- and subregion-specific differences in two genetic mouse models of autism.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Distinct subcircuits within the mesolimbic dopamine system encode the salience and valence of social stimuli.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Oxytocin receptors mediate social selectivity in prairie vole peer relationships.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Tryptophan hydroxylase 2 deficiency alters autism-related behavioural phenotypes in rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Psychometric validation of the Farsi Bergen social media addiction scale (BSMAS) among Iranian adults.BMC public health · 2025Article
- 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
- Sex differences in neural representations of social and nonsocial reward in the medial prefrontal cortex.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Social interaction-induced fear memory reduction: exploring the influence of dopamine and oxytocin receptors on memory updating.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The rewarding properties of social interactions are essential for the expression of social behavior and the development of adaptive social relationships. Here, we review sex differences in social reward, and more specifically, how oxytocin (OT) acts in the mesolimbic dopamine system (MDS) to mediate the rewarding properties of social interactions in a sex-dependent manner. Evidence from rodents and humans suggests that same-sex social interactions may be more rewarding in females than in males. We propose that there is an inverted U relationship between OT dose, social reward, and neural activity within structures of the MDS in both males and females, and that this dose-response relationship is initiated at lower doses in females than males. As a result, depending on the dose of OT administered, OT could reduce social reward in females, while enhancing it in males. Sex differences in the neural mechanisms regulating social reward may contribute to sex differences in the incidence of a large number of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. This review addresses the potential significance of a sex-dependent inverted U dose-response function for OT's effects on social reward and in the development of gender-specific therapies for these disorders.
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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.