including gonadal hormones, early life experience as well as functional and adaptive patterns of sociality and aggression (Dumais and Veenema, 2016, Carter, 2017). Sex-related differences in OXTR binding density have been identified in multiple brain regions (NAc, dorsal CPu, LS, BNST, hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus in rats; (Dumais et al., 2013) though this appears to be highly species-dependent as some rodent species (voles, C57BL/6J mice; (Bales et al., 2007, Smeltzer et al., 2006, Hammock and Levitt, 2013) and humans (Loup et al., 1991) show limited to no sex-related differences in brain OXTR expression (Dumais and Veenema, 2016). However, many of these studies only analyzed OXTR in a few brain regions, highlighting a need for more comprehensive analysis to determine sex-related differences in OXTR across species.
