The hypothalamic peptide oxytocin modulates a wide range of social and cognitive functions in humans and nonhuman primates. As a result, much effort is currently being devoted to developing oxytocin into an adjunct treatment for mental illness, with a particular focus on anxiety, autism, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

In the field of imaging neuroscience, one of the most consistent findings with oxytocin is an inhibition of human amygdala responses to fearful facial expressions following exogenous administration of a single nasal dose—an effect recently replicated in macaques (Liu et al, 2015). An oxytocin-induced modulation of neural activity in the amygdala and other regions is in line with observations that intranasal administration yields increased cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of the peptide in humans (Striepens et al, 2013) as well as macaques (Freeman et al, 2016), although much controversy still exists regarding the exact route of brain penetration.

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