Oxytocinergic System: A Proposal

Since 1910, when Ott and Scott [1] published their discovers about the oxytocin participation in milk ejection, the comprehension about function and role of oxytocin in several physiological functions didn’t stop enlarging and growing. In birth, through his action over uterus contractions, in uterus contractions in women’s orgasm and men’s erection [2,3], for instance. However, this approach always considers its peripheral effects. After this, some oxytocin effects had been reported to have actions over behavioural traits, like we can see in publishings of Pedersen and Prange [4] and Winslow and co-workers [5], reporting the oxytocin actions over, respectively, maternal behaviour and pair bonding. Since then, the increasing data about the oxytocin’s function in behaviour and its central action can’t be ignored. In this short proposal, we’ll consider the opportunity or utility of thinking about oxytocin as a system, instead of a single neurotransmitter.