ReviewEndocrinology2021
Oxytocin, Dopamine, and Opioid Interactions Underlying Pair Bonding: Highlighting a Potential Role for Microglia.
Review in Endocrinology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
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
48 citing papers in PubMed, 77 citations in OpenAlex.
- Role of afterplay in female sexual satisfaction in heterosexual relationship: A prospective randomized two arm study.International journal of impotence research · 2026Article
- The prairie vole gut-brain-microbiota-axis: a narrative review.Gut microbiome (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Romantic love as regulatory co-option of maternal-bonding circuitry: a testable genetic account.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- The expression of father-daughter bond behaviors influences adult partner attachment in titi monkeys.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Distinct subcircuits within the mesolimbic dopamine system encode the salience and valence of social stimuli.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Characterizing Microglia Morphology in the Frontal Cortex of Pair-Bonded and Unpaired Prairie Voles (International journal of molecular sciences · 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
- Does a microbial-endocrine interplay shape love-associated emotions in humans? A hypothesis.mSystems · 2025Review
- Early Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Brain Functionality.Journal of metabolic and bariatric surgery · 2025Review
- Mapping the cellular basis of species differences in oxytocin and dopamine receptor expression in the vole nucleus accumbens.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- From trauma to resilience: psychological and epigenetic adaptations in the third generation of holocaust survivors.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- CellNEST reveals cell-cell relay networks using attention mechanisms on spatial transcriptomics.Nature methods · 2025Article
- How does oxytocin modulate human behavior?Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- The effects of social loss and isolation on partner odor investigation and dopamine and oxytocin receptor expression in female prairie voles.Neuropharmacology · 2025Article
- The long-term associations of childhood parental loss with attachment, creativity, and epigenetic regulation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Lentiviral CRISPRa/i in the adult prairie vole brain: modulating neuronal gene expression without DNA cleavage.Frontiers in genome editing · 2025Article
- Potential Mechanism Linking Peer Relationships and Adolescent Prosocial Behavior: Mediation of Cognitive Empathy and Moderations of OXTR and DRD2.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2024Article
- A narrative on the neurobiological roots of attachment-system functioning.Communications psychology · 2024Review
- The central oxytocinergic system of the prairie vole.Brain structure & function · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Pair bonds represent some of the strongest attachments we form as humans. These relationships positively modulate health and well-being. Conversely, the loss of a spouse is an emotionally painful event that leads to numerous deleterious physiological effects, including increased risk for cardiac dysfunction and mental illness. Much of our understanding of the neuroendocrine basis of pair bonding has come from studies of monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), laboratory-amenable rodents that, unlike laboratory mice and rats, form lifelong pair bonds. Specifically, research using prairie voles has delineated a role for multiple neuromodulatory and neuroendocrine systems in the formation and maintenance of pair bonds, including the oxytocinergic, dopaminergic, and opioidergic systems. However, while these studies have contributed to our understanding of selective attachment, few studies have examined how interactions among these 3 systems may be essential for expression of complex social behaviors, such as pair bonding. Therefore, in this review, we focus on how the social neuropeptide, oxytocin, interacts with classical reward system modulators, including dopamine and endogenous opioids, during bond formation and maintenance. We argue that an understanding of these interactions has important clinical implications and is required to understand the evolution and encoding of complex social behaviors more generally. Finally, we provide a brief consideration of future directions, including a discussion of the possible roles that glia, specifically microglia, may have in modulating social behavior by acting as a functional regulator of these 3 neuromodulatory systems.
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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.