I’m a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oslo. I lead a lab investigating biological systems that link psychological and social factors to health, with a focus on neuroendocrine systems and the autonomic nervous system. My lab uses various research approaches, including intranasal oxytocin studies, large-scale genetics studies, neuroimaging, and the collection of autonomic nervous system data.
Research interests
- The role of the oxytocin system in health and wellbeing
- Cardiac psychophysiology
- Evidence synthesis
- Meta-science
Featured papers
Genetic pathways linking oxytocin-vasotocin hypothalamic subunit architecture with psychiatric and metabolic traits
Sartorius et al., Molecular Psychiatry (2026)
Estimating the genetic overlap between hypothalamic structure and the psychiatric and metabolic conditions that so often co-occur. Preprint
Improving the precision of intranasal oxytocin research
Winterton, Westlye, Steen, Andreassen, & Quintana, Nature Human Behaviour (2021)
Why better delivery methodology alone won’t fix the field: stringent methods need a robust theory of what oxytocin does to ask meaningful questions of it. Preprint
Oxytocin pathway gene networks in the human brain
Quintana et al., Nature Communications (2019)
Voxel-by-voxel expression maps of OXT, OXTR, and CD38 across the human brain, compared against 20,737 genes to identify putative pathway interactions. Open access · Code