Affiliative or aggressive? The role of oxytocin in antisocial behaviour through the lens of the social salience hypothesis

During the last decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in examining how oxytocin is involved in human social behaviour, and prevailing beliefs regarding the role of the oxytocinergic system in social behaviour have undergone a tremendous shift. While oxytocin was once thought to be involved solely in positive prosocial affiliative behaviour, it is now apparent that oxytocin plays a more complex role in a wider range of social and emotion-related behaviours, including antisocial and aggressive behaviours. In order to reconcile the incongruence pertaining to the role of oxytocin, we discuss a theoretical framework according to which oxytocin works mainly by regulating the salience of social cues, and its effects depend on both the external and the internal context in which it is administered. This framework, which enables us to further understand the antisocial effects of oxytocin, may later be translated into therapeutic applications of oxytocin in psychiatric and psychological conditions characterized by impaired social skills.