Thompson R, Gupta S, Miller K, Mills S, Orr S
Psychology Department, Banister Hall, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2004 Jan;29(1):35-48. doi: 10.1016/s0306-4530(02)00133-6.
Arginine vasopressin (AVP) and arginine vasotocin (AVT) influence social behaviors in a number of species from diverse taxonomic groups, therefore suggesting a conservation of social functions for these homologous neuropeptides during vertebrate evolution. However, whether or not AVP has the ability to directly influence social behavior in humans has not yet been determined. Because influences of AVT/AVP on behaviors related to social communication, particularly in aggressive contexts, are among the most consistently observed across species from diverse vertebrate groups, the present study was designed to determine if AVP administration would influence cognitive, autonomic and/or somatic responses to species-specific social stimuli important for agonistic communication in humans. Specifically, we tested the effects of intranasal AVP administration on attention towards emotionally expressive facial expressions, as well as on heart rate (HR), skin conductance (SC) and corrugator supercilii electromyograms (corrugator EMG) in response to these social stimuli. AVP did not affect attention toward, nor autonomic arousal in response to, emotionally neutral, happy or angry facial expressions, but it did selectively enhance the corrugator EMG responses evoked by emotionally neutral facial expressions, making them similar in magnitude to responses evoked by angry facial expressions in control subjects. Because this muscle group is involved in agonistic communication, these results suggest that AVP may influence aggression in human males by biasing individuals to respond to emotionally ambiguous social stimuli as if they were threatening/aggressive.
精氨酸加压素（AVP）和精氨酸催产素（AVT）会影响来自不同分类群体的许多物种的社会行为，因此表明在脊椎动物进化过程中，这些同源神经肽的社会功能具有保守性。然而，AVP是否有能力直接影响人类的社会行为尚未确定。由于AVT/AVP对与社会交流相关行为的影响，特别是在攻击性情境中的影响，是不同脊椎动物群体中最一致观察到的，因此本研究旨在确定给予AVP是否会影响对人类争斗性交流重要的物种特异性社会刺激的认知、自主神经和/或躯体反应。具体而言，我们测试了鼻内给予AVP对关注情绪表达性面部表情的影响，以及对这些社会刺激作出反应时的心率（HR）、皮肤电导（SC）和皱眉肌肌电图（皱眉肌EMG）的影响。AVP既不影响对情绪中性、快乐或愤怒面部表情的关注，也不影响对这些表情作出反应时的自主神经唤醒，但它确实选择性地增强了由情绪中性面部表情诱发的皱眉肌EMG反应，使其幅度与对照组中由愤怒面部表情诱发的反应相似。由于该肌肉群参与争斗性交流，这些结果表明，AVP可能通过使个体将情绪模糊的社会刺激视为威胁性/攻击性刺激来影响人类男性的攻击性。
