Isotocin increases female avoidance of males in a coercive mating system: Assessing the social salience hypothesis of oxytocin in a fish species

The nonapeptide oxytocin (and its fish homolog isotocin (IT)) is an evolutionarily-conserved hormone associated with social behaviors across most vertebrate taxa. Oxytocin has traditionally been regarded as a prosocial hormone, but studies on social cognition in mammalian models suggest it may play a more nuanced role in modulating social discrimination based on social salience and stimulus valence. Here we test IT and its role in regulating...