Oxytocin receptors (OXTR) and early parental care: An interaction that modulates psychiatric disorders

Oxytocin plays an important role in the modulation of social behavior in both typical and atypical contexts. Also, the quality of early parental care sets the foundation for long-term psychosocial development. Here, we review studies that investigated how oxytocin receptor (OXTR) interacts with early parental care experiences to influence the development of psychiatric disorders. Using Pubmed, Scopus and PsycInfo databases, we utilized the keyword “OXTR” before subsequently searching for specific OXTR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), generating a list of 598 studies in total. The papers were catalogued in a database and filtered for gene-environment interaction, psychiatric disorders and involvement of parental care. In particular, rs53576 and rs2254298 were found to be significantly involved in gene-environment interactions that modulated risk for psychopathology and the following psychiatric disorders: disruptive behavior, depression, anxiety, eating disorder and borderline personality disorder. These results illustrate the importance of OXTR in mediating the impact of parental care on the emergence of psychopathology.