Oxytocin promotes face-sensitive neural responses to infant and adult faces in mothers

Abstract

Research utilizing intranasal oxytocin (OT) administration has shown that OT may increase attention and sensitivity to social cues, such as faces. Given the pivotal role of OT in parental behaviors across mammals, the paucity of intranasal OT research investigating responses to social cues in parents and particularly mothers of young children is a critical limitation. In the current study, we recorded cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether intranasal OT affects the early neural responses to emotional faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants. Using a double-blind, within-subjects design, mothers (n = 38) were administered intranasal OT and placebo on separate sessions and presented with happy and sad infant and adult faces while ERP components reflecting face-sensitive brain activation and attention allocation were measured. We hypothesized that ERP responses to faces would be larger in the OT condition and that the effects of OT on ERP responses would be more pronounced for infant faces. The amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 ERP component were larger in the OT condition to infant and adult faces, but no clear support was found for the hypothesis that the responses to infant faces would be more susceptible to OT effects than the responses to adult faces. The attention-sensitive late positive potential (LPP) component was not modulated by intranasal substance condition. The results are in line with the view that OT acts to enhance the perceptual salience of social and emotional stimuli. Demonstrating such effects in mothers of young children encourages further investigation of the potential of intranasal OT to affect the perception of social cues relevant for parent-child interaction.

Oxytocin reduces neural activation in response to infant faces in nulliparous young women

“…In women, only one study investigated the effect of OXT administration in response to infant stimuli while using fMRI and showed enhanced activation in the VTA in response to pictures of crying (but not to smiling) infants in both nulliparous and postpartum women (Gregory et al , 2015 ). Enhanced processing of infant faces after OXT administration was also observed in two recent electroencephalography (EEG) studies in both nulliparous women (Rutherford et al , 2017 ) and mothers (Peltola et al , 2018 ). Rutherford et al ( 2017 ) found a stronger event-related potential (ERP; P300) in response to infant, but not adult faces after OXT administration.…”

“…Rutherford et al ( 2017 ) found a stronger event-related potential (ERP; P300) in response to infant, but not adult faces after OXT administration. Peltola et al ( 2018 ) observed stronger ERPs toward both infant and adult faces after OXT, whereas this effect was only observed for the N170, an earlier component for which Rutherford et al ( 2017 ) observed no such effect, a difference that might be accounted for by the used of mothers and nulliparous women in the separate studies. Overall, these effects might relate to faster detection of infant faces after OXT, which has recently been observed (Holtfrerich et al , 2016 ).…”

“…Since the current fMRI study is the first to use this paradigm while administering OXT and differences of OXT administration have been observed for participant’s sex and parental status (e.g. Feng et al , 2015 ; Wigton et al , 2015 ; Rutherford et al , 2017 ; Wang et al , 2017 ; Peltola et al , 2018 ), only nulliparous women were included, to stay in line with Glocker et al ( 2009b ). Also, we only included women using oral contraceptives (OCs), as in these women the endogenous cyclic endocrine fluctuations which could interact with OXT administration are absent (Montoya and Bos, 2017 ).…”

Neuronal morphology alterations in autism and possible role of oxytocin

“…Recent studies have associated oxytocin with the perception of the social clues (Liu et al 2018) and recognition of the adult faces in parent-child interaction (Peltola et al 2018). The basis of these oxytocin effects could lie in the short-term effects of oxytocin on neuronal activity and neurotransmission, rather than the permanent structural consequences.…”

A tumultuous transition to motherhood: Altered brain and hormonal responses in mothers with postpartum depression

“…number of double-blinded placebo-controlled studies of intranasally administered oxytocin to determine whether interventions that enhance levels of oxytocin would increase socio-emotional functions at the same time as ameliorating a range of dysfunctions in both clinical and non-clinical samples (a detailed review is provided byKim & Strathearn 113 ). Although much of this work has been conducted in men and no fMRI study to date has examined the effects of intranasal oxytocin in postpartum mothers, an event-related potential study has demonstrated that the administration of oxytocin, compared to placebo, enhanced the face-sensitive N170 component with respect to both adult and infant emotional face cues in postpartum mothers 114. It would be of interest for future research to investigate whether an intranasal administration of oxytocin would similarly mitigate or reverse some of the altered BOLD responses that have been documented in mothers with PPD, as has been reviewed in the earlier sections above.The literature on non-postpartum depression has yet to fully clarify the complex ways in which hormones, including oxytocin and cortisol, and the brain intersect to influence and perpetuate depressive symptoms.…”