Intranasal oxytocin enhances emotion recognition from dynamic facial expressions and leaves eye-gaze unaffected

Lischke, Alexander; Berger, Christoph; Prehn, Kristin; Heinrichs, Markus; Herpertz, Sabine C.; Domes, Gregor

doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.07.015

Cited by 190 publications

(190 citation statements)

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“…This observation is in accordance with evidence associating oxytocin with social perception (33) and with emotional face recognition (23). Oxytocin may affect emotion recognition by increasing attention toward specific relevant cues, such as the eye region of faces (34).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

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Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability

Haas

Filkowski

Cochran

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Across many mammalian species there exist genetic and biological systems that facilitate the tendency to be social. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide involved in social-approach behaviors in humans and others mammals. Although there exists a large, mounting body of evidence showing that oxytocin signaling genes are associated with human sociability, very little is currently known regarding the way the structural gene for oxytocin (OXT) confers individual differences in human sociability. In this study, we undertook a comprehensive approach to investigate the association between epigenetic modification of OXT via DNA methylation, and overt measures of social processing, including self-report, behavior, and brain function and structure. Genetic data were collected via saliva samples and analyzed to target and quantify DNA methylation across the promoter region of OXT. We observed a consistent pattern of results across sociability measures. People that exhibit lower OXT DNA methylation (presumably linked to higher OXT expression) display more secure attachment styles, improved ability to recognize emotional facial expressions, greater superior temporal sulcus activity during two social-cognitive functional MRI tasks, and larger fusiform gyrus gray matter volume than people that exhibit higher OXT DNA methylation. These findings provide empirical evidence that epigenetic modification of OXT is linked to several overt measures of sociability in humans and serve to advance progress in translational social neuroscience research toward a better understanding of the evolutionary and genetic basis of normal and abnormal human sociability.ociability is a central feature of the human species. Through one perspective, the complex array of human social-cognition and behavior serves to differentiate humans from other animals. However, there exist several core elemental components of the human sociobiological system that are present across many animal species, which may have remained relatively conserved throughout recent evolutionary history (1). Elucidating the genetic and biological substrates of social behavior serves to advance the way basic human nature is understood and improves the way genetic and biological markers can be used to prevent, diagnose, and treat people with impairments in social cognition and behavior.Oxytocin is a neurohypophysial peptide synthesized in the hypothalamus in the brain, linked to a wide range of social behaviors in humans and other mammals. Administration of oxytocin in humans is associated with changes in social-approach behaviors, such as trust (2) and personal proximity (3). This evidence has motivated the search for genes within the oxytocin system that confer individual differences in social behavior and cognition. A burgeoning body of evidence highlights the role of several key genes within the oxytocin signaling pathway linked to sociability, including the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR), CD38, and the structural gene for oxytocin (OXT) (4). Although mounting data strongly support the role of ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Emotion recognition task. Participants completed a dynamic facial emotion recognition task (23). Participants were presented with 10-s length video clips of neutral facial expressions gradually morphing to happy, angry, sad, or fearful facial expressions.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability

Haas

Filkowski

Cochran

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…First, behavioral measures of rating each emotion differed across studies. Some studies used a multiple-choice format (Lischke et al, 2012;Marsh et al, 2010), while others used a cue-response format (Ellenbogen et al, 2012;Schulze et al, 2011), or ratings on a binary scale (Leknes et al, 2012). Second, while the meta-analysis weighted the effect size obtained for fear against other extracted effect sizes according to sample size, as discussed above, the effect size for fear was based on only one study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In healthy humans, the impact of OT on social cognition has been evaluated using a single dose of intranasal OT, typically given 30-45 min before the experimental task (see Guastella and Macleod (2012) for a review). Although many studies report that OT improves the perception of happy faces (Marsh et al, 2010;Schulze et al, 2011), others report that OT improves the recognition of angry, sad, or fear emotions in faces (Fischer-Shofty et al, 2010;Ellenbogen et al, 2012;Lischke et al, 2012). We have previously argued that different methodologies, or samples assessed may contribute to such inconsistent findings (Guastella and Macleod, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of a Single Administration of Intranasal Oxytocin on the Recognition of Basic Emotions in Humans: A Meta-Analysis

Shahrestani

Kemp

Guastella

2013

Neuropsychopharmacol

257

183

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Many studies have highlighted the potential of oxytocin (OT) to enhance facial affect recognition in healthy humans. However, inconsistencies have emerged with regard to the influence of OT on the recognition of specific emotional expressions (happy, angry, fear, surprise, disgust, and sadness). In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis of seven studies comprising 381 research participants (71 females) examining responses to the basic emotion types to assess whether OT enhances the recognition of emotion from human faces and whether this was influenced by the emotion expression and exposure time of the face. Results showed that intranasal OT administration enhances emotion recognition of faces overall, with a Hedges g effect size of 0.29. When analysis was restricted to facial expression types, significant effects of OT on recognition accuracy were specifically found for the recognition of happy and fear faces. We also found that effect sizes increased to moderate when exposure time of the photograph was restricted to early phase recognition (o300 ms) for happy and angry faces, or later phase recognition for fear faces (4300 ms). The results of the meta-analysis further suggest that OT has potential as a treatment to improve the recognition of emotion in faces, allowing individuals to improve their insight into the intentions, desires, and mental states of others.

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“…For example, intranasal oxytocin enhances covert attention to happy faces (Domes et al, 2013b) and facilitates attentional disengagement from masked angry faces (Ellenbogen et al, 2012). Furthermore, oxytocin improves recognition of dynamic facial expressions at lower intensity levels (Lischke et al, 2012;Prehn et al, 2013), increases sensitivity to implicit and unattended emotional face cues (Leknes et al, 2013), and enhances discrimination of masked facial emotions (Schulze et al, 2011). Together, these results suggest that oxytocin influences facial emotion processing at very early stages of stimulus perception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Oxytocin Attenuates Neural Reactivity to Masked Threat Cues from the Eyes

Kanat

Heinrichs

Schwarzwald

et al. 2014

Neuropsychopharmacol

Self Cite

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The neuropeptide oxytocin has recently been shown to modulate covert attention shifts to emotional face cues and to improve discrimination of masked facial emotions. These results suggest that oxytocin modulates facial emotion processing at early perceptual stages prior to full evaluation of the emotional expression. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine whether oxytocin alters neural responses to backwardly masked angry and happy faces while controlling for attention to the eye vs the mouth region. Intranasal oxytocin administration reduced amygdala reactivity to masked emotions when attending to salient facial features, ie, the eyes of angry faces and the mouth of happy faces. In addition, oxytocin decreased neural responses within the fusiform gyrus and brain stem areas, as well as functional coupling between the amygdala and the fusiform gyrus specifically for threat cues from the eyes. Effects of oxytocin on brain activity were not attributable to differences in behavioral performance, as oxytocin had no impact on mere emotion detection. Our results suggest that oxytocin attenuates neural correlates of early arousal by threat signals from the eye region. As reduced threat sensitivity may increase the likelihood of engaging in social interactions, our findings may have important implications for clinical states of social anxiety.

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Intranasal oxytocin enhances emotion recognition from dynamic facial expressions and leaves eye-gaze unaffected

Cited by 190 publications

References 26 publications

Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability

Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability

The Impact of a Single Administration of Intranasal Oxytocin on the Recognition of Basic Emotions in Humans: A Meta-Analysis

Oxytocin Attenuates Neural Reactivity to Masked Threat Cues from the Eyes

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