摘要Empathy is crucial for communication and sur-vival for individuals.Whether empathy in pain contagion shows sex differences and its underlying mechanisms remain unclear.Here,we report that pain contagion can occur in stranger female rats,but not in stranger males.Blocking oxytocin receptors in the anterior cingulate cortex(ACC)suppressed pain contagion in female strangers,while oxy-tocin administration induced pain contagion in male stran-gers.In vitro,corticosterone reduces neuronal activation by oxytocin.During male stranger interactions,higher corti-costerone decreased oxytocin receptor-positive neuronal activity in the ACC,suppressing pain contagion.These find-ings highlight the role of oxytocin in pain contagion and suggest that sex differences in empathy may be determined by the balance of oxytocin and corticosterone in the ACC.This study suggests an approach for the treatment of certain mental disorders associated with abnormal empathy,such as autism and depression.