Chronic and acute intranasal oxytocin produce divergent social effects in mice.

ABSTRACT: Intranasal administration of oxytocin (OXT) might be a promising new adjunctive therapy for mental disorders characterized by social behavioral alterations such as autism and schizophrenia. Despite promising initial studies in humans, it is not yet clear the specificity of the behavioral effects induced by chronic intranasal OXT and if chronic intranasal OXT could have different effects compared with single administration. This is critical for the aforementioned chronic mental disorders that might potentially involve life-long treatments. As a first step to address these issues, here we report that chronic intranasal OXT treatment in wild-type C57BL/6J adult mice produced a selective reduction of social behaviors concomitant to a reduction of the OXT receptors throughout the brain. Convers

SUBMITTER: Huang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3957104 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature