Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research (NORMENT), Division of Mental Health and Addiction, University of Oslo, and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Brain and Mind Center, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2020 Jul;24(7):515-528. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.03.008. Epub 2020 Apr 29.
Oxytocin has garnered considerable interest for its role in social behavior, as well as for the potential of intranasal administration to treat social difficulties. However, current theoretical models for the role of oxytocin in social behavior pay little consideration to its evolutionary and developmental history. This article aims to broaden our understanding of the role of oxytocin in social behavior by adopting an ethological approach through the lens of Nikolaas Tinbergen's 'four questions' - how does oxytocin work; how does the role of oxytocin change during development; how does oxytocin enhance survival; and how did the oxytocin system evolve? We argue that oxytocin is most accurately described as an allostatic hormone that modulates both social and non-social behavior by maintaining stability through changing environments.
催产素在社会行为中的作用引起了广泛关注，鼻内给药治疗社交困难也具有潜在的应用前景。然而，目前关于催产素在社会行为中的作用的理论模型很少考虑到其进化和发育史。本文旨在通过采用尼古拉·廷伯根的“四个问题”的行为学方法来拓宽我们对催产素在社会行为中的作用的理解——催产素是如何起作用的；在发育过程中，催产素的作用如何变化；催产素如何增强生存能力；以及催产素系统是如何进化的？我们认为，催产素最准确的描述是一种适应激素，通过改变环境来维持稳定，从而调节社会和非社会行为。
