Drug addiction is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Despite great advances were achieved in understanding the neurobiology of drug addiction, the therapeutic options are severely limited, with poor effectiveness and serious side effects. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) is well known for its effects on uterine contraction, sexual/maternal behaviors, social affiliation, stress and learning/memory by interacting with the OXT receptor and other neuromodulators. Emerging evidence suggests that the acute or chronic exposure to drugs can affect the OXT system. Additionally, OXT administration can ameliorate a wide range of abused drug-induced neurobehavioral changes. Overall, OXT not only suppresses drug reward in the binge stage of drug addiction, but also reduces stress responses and social impairments during the withdrawal stage and, finally, prevents drug/cue/stress-induced reinstatement. More importantly, clinical studies have also shown that OXT can exert beneficial effects on reducing substance use disorders of a series of drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, alcohol, cannabis and nicotine. Thus, the present review focuses on the role of OXT in treating drug addiction, including the preclinical and clinical therapeutic potential of OXT and its analogs on the neurobiological perspectives of drugs, to provide a better insight of the efficacy of OXT as a clinical addiction therapeutic agent.

吸毒成瘾是全球死亡的主要原因之一。尽管在了解药物成瘾的神经生物学方面取得了很大进展，但治疗选择受到严重限制，效果不佳且副作用严重。众所周知，神经肽催产素 (OXT) 通过与 OXT 受体和其他神经调节剂相互作用对子宫收缩、性/母亲行为、社会关系、压力和学习/记忆产生影响。新出现的证据表明，急性或慢性接触药物会影响 OXT 系统。此外，OXT 给药可以改善广泛的滥用药物引起的神经行为变化。总体而言，OXT 不仅在毒瘾的狂欢阶段抑制药物奖励，而且在戒断阶段减少压力反应和社会障碍，并且，最后，防止药物/提示/压力引起的恢复。更重要的是，临床研究还表明，OXT 对减少海洛因、可卡因、酒精、大麻和尼古丁等一系列药物的物质使用障碍具有有益作用。因此，本综述侧重于 OXT 在治疗药物成瘾中的作用，包括 OXT 及其类似物在药物神经生物学方面的临床前和临床治疗潜力，以更好地了解 OXT 作为临床成瘾治疗的功效代理人。