Oxytocin increases VTA activation to infant and sexual stimuli in nulliparous and postpartum women
Open accessAbstract
After giving birth, women typically experience decreased sexual desire and increased responsiveness to infant stimuli. These postpartum changes may be viewed as a trade-off in reproductive interests, which could be due to alterations in brain activity including areas associated with reward. The goal of this study was to describe the roles of oxytocin and parity on reward area activation in response to reproductive stimuli, specifically infant and sexual images. Because they have been shown to be associated with reward, the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) were targeted as areas of expected alterations in activity. Oxytocin was chosen as a potential mediator of reproductive trade-offs because of its relationship to both mother-infant interactions, including breastfeeding and bonding, and sexual responses. We predicted that postpartum women would show higher reward area activation to infant stimuli and nulliparous women would show higher activation to sexual stimuli and that oxytocin would increase activation to infant stimuli in nulliparous women. To test this, we measured VTA and NAc activation using fMRI in response to infant photos, sexual photos, and neutral photos in 29 postpartum and 30 nulliparous women. Participants completed the Sexual Inhibition (SIS) and Sexual Excitation (SES) Scales and the Brief Index of Sexual Function for Women (BISF-W), which includes a sexual desire dimension, and received either oxytocin or placebo nasal spray before viewing crying and smiling infant and sexual images in an fMRI scanner. For both groups of women, intranasal oxytocin administration increased VTA activation to both crying infant and sexual images but not to smiling infant images. We found that postpartum women showed lower SES, higher SIS, and lower sexual desire compared to nulliparous women. Across parity groups, SES scores were correlated with VTA activation and subjective arousal ratings to sexual images. In postpartum women, sexual desire was positively correlated with VTA activation to sexual images and with SES. Our findings show that postpartum decreases in sexual desire may in part be mediated by VTA activation, and oxytocin increased activation of the VTA but not NAc in response to sexual and infant stimuli. Oxytocin may contribute to the altered reproductive priorities in postpartum women by increasing VTA activation to salient infant stimuli.
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Intranasal OXT increases VTA activation to sexual images in women.
“increased VTA activation to sexual images by intranasal OXT in women (Gregory et al., 2015)”
From Convergence of oxytocin and dopamine signalling in neuronal circuits: Insights into the neurobiology of social interactions across species (2024) · cites this paper as Gregory et al., 2015
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“These findings are in line with previous data showing that OXT mediated VTA activation to socially rewarding cues (Groppe et al., 2013) as well as with another study showing increased VTA activation to sexual images by intranasal OXT in women (Gregory et al., 2015).”
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- Authors
- Gregory, R., Cheng, H., Rupp, H. A., Sengelaub, D. R., & Heiman, J. R.
- Affiliations
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Heiman, Julia R.
- Venue
- Hormones and Behavior
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-03
- Volume
- 69
- Pages
- 82-88
- ISSN
- 0018-506X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4418634
- OpenAlex
- W2000829711
- Cited by
- 72
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 7
- FWCI
- 19.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Hormones and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Indiana University Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R21MH082925)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- oxytocin, postpartum women, nulliparous women, ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens, reward processing, sexual stimuli, sexual desire, sexual inhibition, sexual excitation, parity, reproductive trade-offs, mother-infant bonding, intranasal oxytocin
- MeSH terms
- Administration, Intranasal, Adult, Emotions, Female, Humans, Infant, Libido, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mother-Child Relations, Nucleus Accumbens, Object Attachment, Oxytocin, Parity, Photic Stimulation, Pregnancy, Reward, Sexual Behavior, Ventral Tegmental Area, Postpartum Period, Young Adult
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