OXTR and Anxiety: This aligns with extensive literature showing that OTR activation, especially in stressed animals, has anxiolytic effects.7,8,78 BNSTDL activity mediates hypervigilance and anticipatory anxiety in response to unpredictable or un-signaled threats.25,79,80 While the oval nucleus of the BNST was identified as an anxiogenic node, this was based on optogenetic manipulations in dopamine-D1 receptor Cre mice,81 making the effect specific to D1R-neurons in the BNSTOV, which is otherwise a heterogeneous nucleus with diverse neurons.