Classically, the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) has been associated with maternal behaviors such as parturition, uterine contractions, and suckling (Gimpl and Fahrenholz, 2001). Aside from its known hormonal role in parturition and maternal behaviors, OXT 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, Burkett and Young, 2012, Neumann and Landgraf, 2012). Further, through interactions with brain reward and stress systems, OXT is known to play a role in several neuropsychiatric disorders, including alcohol and drug addiction. It has been hypothesized that drug-mediated and social reward signals compete within brain reward circuity (Leong et al., 2018, Insel, 2003, Buisman-Pijlman et al., 2014). There is evidence to suggest that OXT may enable the rewarding effects of prosocial behavior at the expense of drug-related rewards (Sarnyai and Kovács, 2014, Thompson et al., 2007, Leong et al., 2018), though the mechanism by which this occurs is still under investigation. Further, OXT has been shown to have potent anxiolytic properties and can reduce HPA-axis reactivity following
