Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.
Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences and Department of Physiology/Neuroscience, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
Biol Psychiatry. 2019 May 15;85(10):792-801. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.10.008. Epub 2018 Oct 25.
Oxytocin (OT) is widely known for promoting social interactions, but there is growing appreciation that it can sometimes induce avoidance of social contexts. The social salience hypothesis posed an innovative solution to these apparently opposing actions by proposing that OT enhances the salience of both positive and negative social interactions. The mesolimbic dopamine system was put forth as a likely system to evaluate social salience owing to its well-described role in motivation. Evidence from several sources supports the premise that OT acting within the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area facilitates social reward and approach behavior. However, in aversive social contexts, additional pathways play critical roles in mediating the effects of OT. Recent data indicate that OT acts in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis to induce avoidance of potentially dangerous social contexts. Here, we review evidence for neural circuits mediating the effects of OT in appetitive and aversive social contexts. Specifically, we propose that distinct but potentially overlapping circuits mediate OT-dependent social approach or social avoidance. We conclude that a broader and more inclusive consideration of neural circuits of social approach and avoidance is needed as the field continues to evaluate the potential of OT-based therapeutics.
催产素（OT）被广泛认为可以促进社交互动，但人们越来越认识到，它有时也会促使人们回避社交环境。社交显著性假说为这些看似相反的作用提出了一个创新的解决方案，即提议 OT 增强了积极和消极社交互动的显著性。中脑边缘多巴胺系统因其在动机方面的明确作用而被提出作为评估社交显著性的可能系统。来自多个来源的证据支持这样一个前提，即在伏隔核和腹侧被盖区发挥作用的 OT 有助于促进社交奖励和接近行为。然而，在令人厌恶的社交环境中，其他途径在介导 OT 的作用方面起着关键作用。最近的数据表明，OT 在终纹床核中发挥作用，以诱导对潜在危险社交环境的回避。在这里，我们回顾了在奖赏和厌恶社交环境中介导 OT 作用的神经回路的证据。具体来说，我们提出，不同但可能重叠的回路介导了 OT 依赖性的社交接近或回避。我们得出结论，随着该领域继续评估基于 OT 的治疗方法的潜力，需要更广泛和更具包容性地考虑社交接近和回避的神经回路。
