Of Mice and Oxytocin: Reducing Emotional Costs of Socially Mediated Stressors

The neurohypophysial hormone oxytocin is traditionally known for important roles in female reproductive functioning and might attenuate the impact of pro-inflammatory cytokines in atherogenesis. These cytokines have a modulating role in emotions, and oxytocin has been associated with beneficial effects on affiliative social behaviors. To learn more about the interplay of oxytocin, cytokines, social isolation, and depression, investigators used a mouse model in which nerve injury induces depression-like behavior associated with cytokine increases in the frontal cortex.

Socially isolated, nerve-injured mice showed more depression-like behavior, greater expression of the cytokine interleukin (IL)-1β in the frontal cortex, and greater allodynia …