All of the participating women used hormonal contraceptives and were tested in the pill-phase. This was done to control for a potential pregnancy and to prevent cyclic changes in steroid hormone levels. But it’s important to note that previous research showed that the intake of oral contraceptives increased performance in affective responsiveness and that affective responsiveness was positively influenced by oral contraceptives (pill-intake phase versus pill-free week)55. Further, testosterone in females on oral contraceptives may be downregulated56. Therefore, using participants on hormonal contraceptives for an OT-intervention study may not represent the ideal model to detect OT sensitivity, that may be modulated by T. Yet, ethical concerns (increased pregnancy risk in women with a natural cycle), the fact that T level fluctuates across the natural cycle (e.g., rises during the first half), as well as our previous results in women on oral contraceptives6, led to our decision to test only women who received hormonal contraception in this between-subjects fMRI design. As a future direction, it would be of great interest to further examine normal cycling women and the influence of the intake of oral contraceptives on the recent results.