Amine oxides exhibit many kinds of reactions.
*Pyrolytic elimination. Amine oxides, when heated to 150–200 °C undergo a Cope reaction to form a hydroxylamine and an alkene. The reaction requires the alkyl groups to have hydrogens at the beta-carbon (i.e. works with ethyl and above, but not methyl)
*Reduction to amines. Amine oxides are readily converted to the parent amine by common reduction reagents including lithium aluminium hydride, sodium borohydride, catalytic reduction, zinc / acetic acid, and iron / acetic acid. Pyridine N-oxides can be deoxygenated by phosphorus oxychloride
* Sacrificial catalysis. Oxidants can be regenerated by reduction of N-oxides, as in the case of regeneration of osmium tetroxide by N-methylmorpholine N-oxide in the Upjohn dihydroxylation.
* O-Alkylation. Pyridine N-oxides react with alkyl halides to the O-alkylated product
* Bis-ter-pyridine derivatives adsorbed on silver surfaces are discussed to react with oxygen to bis-ter-pyridine N-oxide. This reaction can be followed by video-scanning tunneling microscopy with sub-molecular resolution.
* In the Meisenheimer rearrangement (after Jakob Meisenheimer) certain N-oxides  rearrange to hydroxylamines 
: in a 1,2-rearrangement:
:or a 2,3-rearrangement:
* In the Polonovski reaction a tertiary N-oxide is cleaved by acetic acid anhydride to the corresponding acetamide and aldehyde: