Challenges for measuring oxytocin: the blind men and the elephant?
Open accessAbstract
Since its discovery more than a century ago, oxytocin has become one of the most intensively studied molecules in behavioral biology. In the last five years, Psychoneuroendocrinology has published more than 500 articles with oxytocin in the title, with many of these articles including measures of endogenous oxytocin concentrations. Despite longstanding interest, methods of measuring endogenous oxytocin are still in active development. The widely varying oxytocin concentrations detected by different approaches to measurement - and lack of correlation among these techniques - has led to controversy and confusion. We identify features of oxytocin that may help to explain why various approaches may be differentially sensitive to diverse conformational states of the oxytocin molecule. We propose that discrepancies in data generated by different methods of measurement are not necessarily an indicator that some methods are valid whereas others are not. Rather, we propose that current challenges in the measurement of oxytocin may be analogous to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, with different methods of sample preparation and measurement being sensitive to different states in which the oxytocin molecule can exist.
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Discrepancies in music-induced OXT findings may arise from differences in participant characteristics, types of music-based intervention, study designs, OXT measurements, and contextual factors.
“The discrepancies may arise from differences in participant characteristics, types of music-based intervention, study designs, OXT measurements, and contextual factors (Engel et al., 2019; MacLean et al., 2019; Tabak et al., 2023).”
From Music's context-dependent influence on oxytocin, social bonding, and emotion regulation: a systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as MacLean et al., 2019
The Implications section (page unavailable) explains that different oxytocin measurement methods can yield discrepant results because they detect different forms of the molecule. This supports OXT measurement as a possible source of discrepancies, but the paper does not address music-induced findings or attribute their differences to participant characteristics, music interventions, study designs, or contextual factors. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- MacLean, E. L., Wilson, S. R., Martin, W. L., Davis, J. M., Nazarloo, H. P., & Carter, C. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Arizona (US)
- University of Oslo (NO)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Indiana University (US)
- Corresponding author
- MacLean, Evan L.
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-09
- Volume
- 107
- Pages
- 225-231
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6634994
- OpenAlex
- W2945572346
- Cited by
- 183
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7
- FWCI
- 3.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Norges Forskningsråd (262613)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- National Institutes of Health (R21HD095217, P01HD07575)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuropeptides and Animal Physiology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- oxytocin, measurement method comparison, sample preparation, method sensitivity
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid, Humans, Immunoassay, Oxytocin, Specimen Handling, Vasopressins, Reproducibility of Results
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