Overall, drug and alcohol exposure appear to produce compensatory neuroadaptive changes in the endogenous OXT system in brain regions specifically involved in the addiction process, though these changes appear to be drug- and possibly species-specific. Impaired functioning of the brain OXT system is likely to contribute to dysfunctional social-, reward-, and stress-related behaviors (Bowen and Neumann, 2017). Therefore, administration of OXT may be beneficial in restoring behavior by compensating, at least in part, for abnormalities in the brain OXT system due to alcohol or drug exposure.
