OT effects on social cognition and behavior Studies in rodents demonstrate a critical role for the neuropeptide OT in social bonding (Young et al. 2005). A large and rapidly growing translational literature indicates that this neuropeptide may also play a prosocial role in human behavior. The prosocial effects of OT administration have already been extensively reviewed in the literature (Striepens N et al., 2011). In the area of trust and altruism, studies utilizing a variety of economic and cooperation paradigms indicate that OT enhances trusting and social cooperation (Baumgartner T et al., 2008; De Dreu CK et al., 2010; Declerck CH et al., 2010; Kosfeld M et al., 2005; Mikolajczak M et al., 2010; Zak PJ et al., 2007). Feelings of empathy to others were enhanced with OT in three studies (Domes et al. 2007; Bartz et al. 2010; Hurlemann et al. 2010). Several studies indicate that OT increases the ability of healthy controls to identify emotion in faces (Di Simplicio et al. 2009; Fischer-Shofty et al. 2010, Marsh et al. 2010). There are reports using memory paradigms, in which OT administration induced enhanced recall of faces after OT (Savaskan et al. 2008; Rimmele et al. 2009), although an earlier study found no improvement (Ferrier et al. 1980). OT administration also increased recall of social words (Unkelbach et al. 2008). There is some indication that OT effects on recall are specific to emotional stimuli since several studies in healthy controls found that OT did not improve memory for nonsocial stimuli (Bruins J et al., 1992; Fehm-Wolfsdorf G et al., 1984; Geenen V et al., 1988; Kennett DJ et al., 1982).