A growing body of literature suggests that oxytocin plays a significsant role in alcohol (and othe drug) addiction, as well as neuropsychiatric disorders that involve deficits in social behaviors (Baskerville and Douglas, 2010; Lee and Weerts, 2016). Oxytocin, a nonapeptide, is an endogenous neurohormone synthesized in the paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei of the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary into peripheral circulation. In addition, oxytocin is released by neurons in the hypothalamus that project to numerous extra-hypothalamic regions in the brain (e.g., cortical, limbic, basal ganglia structures) where it mediates an array of behavioral effects via interaction with G(q)-coupled oxytocin receptors (Lee et al., 2016). Aside from its known hormonal role in parturition and maternal behaviors, oxytocin also regulates a number of behaviors that involve social interactions (e.g., pair-bonding, social reward processing, aggression) and nonsocial behaviors, including anxiety and stress responses (Baskerville and Douglas, 2010; Bowen et al., 2011; Neumann and Landgraf, 2012).
