ReviewCell and tissue research2019
Oxytocin facilitates adaptive fear and attenuates anxiety responses in animal models and human studies-potential interaction with the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST).
Review in Cell and tissue research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 2 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 67 citations in OpenAlex.
- Coordination of social behaviors by the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.The European journal of neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Activity of Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Neurons in the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis Reduces Anxiety-Potentiated Startle in Female Rats in an Estrous Phase-Dependent Manner.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Decoding dog communication through the physiology and behavior of urine marking.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Altered association of plasmatic oxytocin with affective stress response in alcohol use disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Oxytocin, Vasopressin and Stress: A Hormetic Perspective.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Review
- The psychedelic-peptide paradox: a hormetic hypothesis.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Review
- Vasopressin and oxytocin excite BNST neurons via oxytocin receptors, which reduce anxious arousal.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Distinct oxytocin signaling pathways synergistically mediate rescue-like behavior in mice.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Prenatal maternal life adversity impacts on learning and memory in offspring: implication to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Oxytocin as a treatment for alcohol use disorder and heavy drinking: A narrative review.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2024Review
- Review
- Moxie begets MOXI: The journey to a novel hypothesis about Mu-opioid and OXytocin system Interactions.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Giftedness and atypical sexual differentiation: enhanced perceptual functioning through estrogen deficiency instead of androgen excess.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Review
- Chronic oxytocin-driven alternative splicing of Crfr2α induces anxiety.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Maternal outcomes related to Genetic and epigenetic Variation in the oxytocin system: A scoping review.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Fear-Conditioning to Unpredictable Threats Reveals Sex and Strain Differences in Rat Fear-Potentiated Startle (FPS).Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Sex and hormonal status influence the anxiolytic-like effect of oxytocin in mice.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
- Resilience by design: How nature, nurture, environment, and microbiome mitigate stress and allostatic load.World journal of psychiatry · 2023Review
- Fear-conditioning to unpredictable threats reveals sex differences in rat fear-potentiated startle (FPS).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Despite its relatively well-understood role as a reproductive and pro-social peptide, oxytocin (OT) tells a more convoluted story in terms of its modulation of fear and anxiety. This nuanced story has been obscured by a great deal of research into the therapeutic applications of exogenous OT, driving more than 400 ongoing clinical trials. Drawing from animal models and human studies, we review the complex evidence concerning OT's role in fear learning and anxiety, clarifying the existing confusion about modulation of fear versus anxiety. We discuss animal models and human studies demonstrating the prevailing role of OT in strengthening fear memory to a discrete signal or cue, which allows accurate and rapid threat detection that facilitates survival. We also review ostensibly contrasting behavioral studies that nonetheless provide compelling evidence of OT attenuating sustained contextual fear and anxiety-like behavior, arguing that these OT effects on the modulation of fear vs. anxiety are not mutually exclusive. To disambiguate how endogenous OT modulates fear and anxiety, an understudied area compared to exogenous OT, we survey behavioral studies utilizing OT receptor (OTR) antagonists. Based on emerging evidence about the role of OTR in rat dorsolateral bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST) and elsewhere, we postulate that OT plays a critical role in facilitating accurate discrimination between stimuli representing threat and safety. Supported by human studies, we demonstrate that OT uniquely facilitates adaptive fear but reduces maladaptive anxiety. Last, we explore the limited literature on endogenous OT and its interaction with corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) with a special emphasis on the dorsolateral BNST, which may hold the key to the neurobiology of phasic fear and sustained anxiety.
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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.