Department of Psychology, Peking University, No. 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, PR China.
J Affect Disord. 2012 May;138(3):468-72. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2012.01.009. Epub 2012 Feb 20.
Oxytocin exerts well accepted effects on one of the key social processes: empathy. Previous researches have demonstrated that oxytocin promotes emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy, by exogenous administration as well as on gene level. However, the effect of diverse gene locus haplotypes of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on trait empathy lacks reliable evidence.
Participants consisted of 101 genetically unrelated, non-clinical Chinese subjects (46 males and 55 females). Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was applied to measure the trait empathy from four dimensions: empathy concern, personal distress, perspective taking and fantasy. Fantasy and perspective taking measured cognitive aspect of empathy, while empathy concern and personal distress measured emotional aspect of empathy. Ten single tagging SNPs on OXTR rs2268491, rs1042778, rs53576, rs7632287, rs2254298, rs13316193, rs237897, rs237887, rs4686302, and rs2268493 were tested.
Genotype difference in emotional empathy was found on rs237887 and rs4686302 whereas cognitive empathy varied on SNPs rs2268491 and rs2254298 between homozygous and variant carriers. For IRI score, there is a genotype and gender interaction on rs4686302 and rs13316193.
The sample sizes from the current study were not so optimal that these results should have to be interpreted with caution when amplified into a larger population.
The findings demonstrate that natural variants of OXTR associated with trait empathy; specifically, individuals with certain OXTR genotype did perform better on trait empathy, while others did not. Our findings also provide genetic evidence for gender-related difference on empathy, indicating the popular fact that females who displayed more empathy than males could be likely to trace back to the genetic variants.
催产素对关键社会过程之一——同理心，具有公认的影响。先前的研究表明，催产素通过外源性给药和基因水平促进同理心的情感和认知方面。然而，不同的催产素受体基因（OXTR）基因座单倍型对特质同理心的影响缺乏可靠的证据。
研究对象包括 101 名无亲缘关系的非临床中国受试者（46 名男性和 55 名女性）。采用人际反应指数（IRI）从四个维度测量特质同理心：同理心关注、个人痛苦、观点采择和幻想。幻想和观点采择测量同理心的认知方面，而同理心关注和个人痛苦测量同理心的情感方面。对 OXTR 的 rs2268491、rs1042778、rs53576、rs7632287、rs2254298、rs13316193、rs237897、rs237887、rs4686302 和 rs2268493 这 10 个单标签 SNP 进行了测试。
在 rs237887 和 rs4686302 上发现了情感同理心的基因型差异，而在 rs2268491 和 rs2254298 上，纯合子和变异载体的认知同理心存在 SNP 差异。对于 IRI 评分，在 rs4686302 和 rs13316193 上存在基因型和性别相互作用。
当前研究的样本量不是很大，因此当将这些结果推广到更大的人群时，必须谨慎解释。
研究结果表明，OXTR 的自然变异与特质同理心有关；具体来说，具有某些 OXTR 基因型的个体在特质同理心方面表现更好，而其他个体则不然。我们的研究结果还为同理心的性别相关差异提供了遗传证据，表明女性比男性表现出更多同理心的普遍事实可能可以追溯到遗传变异。
