Woolley J D, Chuang B, Fussell C, Scherer S, Biagianti B, Fulford D, Mathalon D H, Vinogradov S
Department of Psychiatry,San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center,San Francisco,CA,USA.
Institute for Creative Technologies,University of Southern California,Los Angeles,CA,USA.
Psychol Med. 2017 May;47(7):1311-1322. doi: 10.1017/S0033291716003433. Epub 2017 Jan 16.
Blunted facial affect is a common negative symptom of schizophrenia. Additionally, assessing the trustworthiness of faces is a social cognitive ability that is impaired in schizophrenia. Currently available pharmacological agents are ineffective at improving either of these symptoms, despite their clinical significance. The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin has multiple prosocial effects when administered intranasally to healthy individuals and shows promise in decreasing negative symptoms and enhancing social cognition in schizophrenia. Although two small studies have investigated oxytocin's effects on ratings of facial trustworthiness in schizophrenia, its effects on facial expressivity have not been investigated in any population.
We investigated the effects of oxytocin on facial emotional expressivity while participants performed a facial trustworthiness rating task in 33 individuals with schizophrenia and 35 age-matched healthy controls using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Participants rated the trustworthiness of presented faces interspersed with emotionally evocative photographs while being video-recorded. Participants' facial expressivity in these videos was quantified by blind raters using a well-validated manualized approach (i.e. the Facial Expression Coding System; FACES).
While oxytocin administration did not affect ratings of facial trustworthiness, it significantly increased facial expressivity in individuals with schizophrenia (Z = -2.33, p = 0.02) and at trend level in healthy controls (Z = -1.87, p = 0.06).
These results demonstrate that oxytocin administration can increase facial expressivity in response to emotional stimuli and suggest that oxytocin may have the potential to serve as a treatment for blunted facial affect in schizophrenia.
面部表情平淡是精神分裂症常见的阴性症状。此外，评估面部的可信度是一种社会认知能力，在精神分裂症中会受损。尽管这些症状具有临床意义，但目前可用的药物在改善这些症状方面均无效。下丘脑神经肽催产素经鼻内给药于健康个体时具有多种亲社会效应，并有望减轻精神分裂症的阴性症状和增强社会认知。虽然有两项小型研究调查了催产素对精神分裂症患者面部可信度评分的影响，但尚未在任何人群中研究其对面部表情的影响。
我们采用双盲、安慰剂对照、交叉设计，在33名精神分裂症患者和35名年龄匹配的健康对照者中，研究了催产素在参与者执行面部可信度评分任务时对面部情绪表达的影响。参与者在观看情绪诱发照片的间隙对呈现的面部可信度进行评分，同时进行录像。盲法评分者使用经过充分验证的手动方法（即面部表情编码系统；FACES）对这些视频中参与者的面部表情进行量化。
虽然给予催产素并未影响面部可信度评分，但它显著提高了精神分裂症患者的面部表情（Z = -2.33，p = 0.02），在健康对照者中也有提高趋势（Z = -1.87，p = 0.06）。
这些结果表明，给予催产素可增加对情绪刺激的面部表情，并提示催产素可能有潜力作为治疗精神分裂症患者面部表情平淡的一种疗法。
