Oxytocin, sex hormones and brain activity in facial expression processing: A sex-based systematic review.

What It Covers

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this systematic review publication.

Receptors for oxytocin, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone exist in brain structures involved in emotional processing.

Together, these hormones might play an important role in accounting for sex difference in face expression recognition, wherein females typically outperform males.

Who the Included Studies Covered

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

Included studies assessed the influence of endogenous or exogenous oxytocin and sex hormones on brain activity using fMRI during a task involving facial expressions of emotion in healthy adult males and females (pre-menopausal aged >18 yr).

How the Review Was Done

A systematic review was conducted by performing a search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycInfo, in December 2024, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines.

What Was Measured

Receptors for oxytocin, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone exist in brain structures involved in emotional processing.

This systematic review examined the influence of endogenous levels and exogenous administration of oxytocin, estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone on brain activity in males and females, assessed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), during the processing of facial emotional expressions.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Brain, Emotions, Estradiol, Facial Expression, Facial Recognition, Gonadal Steroid Hormones and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Brain activity, FMRI, Oxytocin, Progesterone and Testosterone.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a systematic review of Oxytocin.

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2026 (Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.