“…The pro-social effects of nasal OXT manipulation have been confirmed in animal studies ( Bales et al, 2014 ; Calcagnoli et al, 2015 ; Simpson et al, 2017 ) and clinical studies ( Hollander et al, 2003 ; Andari et al, 2010 ; Watanabe et al, 2015 ; Yatawara et al, 2016 ). Although the underlying mechanism is unclear, immunohistochemical staining of c-Fos ( Jia et al, 2008 ; Hara et al, 2017 ) and imaging studies ( Bethlehem et al, 2013 ; Rilling et al, 2014 ) have shown that nasal administration of OXT activates social behavior-relevant areas in the brain. However, an acute exogenous OXT supplementation only produced a temporary pro-social effect ( Penagarikano et al, 2015 ; Hara et al, 2017 ), probably because the half-life of OXT in the brain is relatively short ( Jones and Robinson, 1982 ; Mens et al, 1983 ).…”