Center for Child and Family Studies Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Gerontology. 2013;59(1):32-9. doi: 10.1159/000341333. Epub 2012 Aug 24.
Interest in oxytocin has increased rapidly over the last decades. Consequently, quite a number of studies have addressed the influence of oxytocin on social stress, perception, cognition, and decision making in healthy adults as well as in clinical samples characterized by some form of social disturbance. Surprisingly little research on oxytocin has focused on ageing populations. This is particularly striking in two areas of study: the role of oxytocin in grandparents' behavior toward and bonding with their grandchildren and the effects of oxytocin on the neurocognitive processing of socioemotional stimuli. The current mini-review offers an overview of the literature on the involvement of oxytocin in parental behavior and neurocognitive functioning, and discusses the relevance of these findings to ageing individuals. As the literature shows that oxytocin is profoundly involved in parenting and in bonding throughout life, it is highly likely that oxytocin plays a role in grandparenting and bonding between grandparents and grandchildren as well. However, results obtained with younger adults may not be directly applicable to older individuals in yet another type of relationship. The possibility that age-related changes occur in the oxytocin system (which is at present unclear) must be taken into account. In addition, ageing impairs neurocognitive processes that are profoundly affected by oxytocin (including some aspects of memory and emotion recognition) and is associated with alterations in both structure and function of the amygdala, which is prominently involved in mediating effects of oxytocin. Research investigating the ageing oxytonergic system and studies focusing on the involvement of oxytocin in socioemotional neurocognitive processes and social behavior in elderly individuals, including grandparents, are therefore urgently needed.
几十年来，人们对催产素的兴趣迅速增加。因此，相当多的研究已经探讨了催产素对健康成年人以及某些形式的社交障碍的临床样本的社会压力、感知、认知和决策的影响。令人惊讶的是，关于催产素的研究很少关注老年人群体。这在两个研究领域尤为明显：催产素在祖父母对孙辈的行为和与孙辈的联系中的作用，以及催产素对社会情感刺激的神经认知处理的影响。当前的小型评论提供了催产素在父母行为和神经认知功能中的作用的文献综述，并讨论了这些发现与老年个体的相关性。由于文献表明，催产素在整个生命周期中都深深地参与了父母行为和纽带，因此很可能催产素在祖孙关系中也起着作用。然而，在另一种关系中，用年轻成年人获得的结果可能不适用于老年人。目前尚不清楚的是，与年龄相关的变化是否会发生在催产素系统中，必须考虑到这一点。此外，衰老会损害神经认知过程，而这些过程受到催产素的深刻影响（包括记忆和情绪识别的某些方面），并且与杏仁核的结构和功能的改变有关，杏仁核在介导催产素的作用中起着重要作用。因此，迫切需要研究衰老的催产素系统，以及研究催产素在老年人（包括祖父母）的社会情感神经认知过程和社会行为中的作用。
