Division of Developmental Higher Brain Functions, United Graduate School of Child Development, University of Fukui, Fukui, 23-3 Matsuoka-Shimoaizuki, Eiheiji-cho, Fukui 910-1193, Japan.
Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, 23-3 Matsuoka-Shimoaizuki, Eiheiji-cho, Fukui, 910-1193, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2017 May 31;7(1):2540. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-02368-x.
Oxytocin (OT) signalling represents one of the most critical systems involved in human social behaviour. Although several studies have examined the relationship between social functioning and peripheral OT levels, the association between OT and the development of social attention has not been well studied. Therefore, we investigated the developmental relationship between gaze fixation for social cues and OT levels during young childhood. We examined visual attention using an eye tracking system in infants and children (5-90 months of age) and measured the concentration of OT in saliva samples. We observed a negative association between age and both attention toward social cues and salivary OT levels, and a positive association between age and attention for non-social cues. We also observed that salivary OT levels were modulated by polymorphisms in oxytocin receptor (OXTR) rs53576. Our results suggest that there is an age-dependent association between visual attention for social cues and OT levels in infants and children, and that the development of visual attention to the eyes as social cues is associated with both OXTR polymorphisms and OT levels. Such findings indicate that OT and OXTR status may provide insight into the atypical development of social attention in infants and young children.
催产素（OT）信号代表了参与人类社会行为的最重要的系统之一。尽管有几项研究已经研究了社交功能与外周 OT 水平之间的关系，但 OT 与社会注意力发展之间的关联尚未得到很好的研究。因此，我们研究了儿童期社交线索注视与 OT 水平之间的发展关系。我们使用眼动跟踪系统检查了婴儿和儿童（5-90 个月大）的视觉注意力，并测量了唾液样本中的 OT 浓度。我们观察到，年龄与社交线索注意力和唾液 OT 水平呈负相关，与非社交线索注意力呈正相关。我们还观察到，OT 受体（OXTR）rs53576 多态性调节唾液 OT 水平。我们的研究结果表明，婴儿和儿童的社交线索视觉注意力与 OT 水平之间存在年龄依赖性关联，而对眼睛作为社交线索的视觉注意力的发展与 OXTR 多态性和 OT 水平都有关。这些发现表明，OT 和 OXTR 状态可能为婴儿和幼儿社会注意力的异常发展提供了线索。
