title: Oxytocin in the socioemotional brain: implications for psychiatric disorders.
abstract: The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT), highly conserved during evolution, is an important modulator of social and emotional processes across many species. During the last decade, a large body of literature has revealed its effects on different aspects of social behavior, including social stress and anxiety, social memory, affiliation and bonding, emotion recognition, mentalizing, empathy, and interpersonal trust. In addition, as impairments in these social domains can be observed in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism, social anxiety disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder, the role of OXT in mental disorders and their treatment has been intensively studied. The present paper gives a short overview of these lines of research and shows how OXT has become a promising target for novel treatment approaches for mental disorders characterized by social impairments.
authors: Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Kirsch
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: interpersonal trust; oxytocin; oxytocin treatment; psychiatric disoder; social anxiety; social cognition; social stress