Human Information Processing Laboratory, Faculty of Social Sciences, 33014, University of Tampere, Finland.
Stead Family Department of Pediatrics, University of Iowa, and the Center for Disabilities and Development, United States.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2018 May;91:261-270. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.02.012. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
Research utilizing intranasal oxytocin (OT) administration has shown that OT may increase attention and sensitivity to social cues, such as faces. Given the pivotal role of OT in parental behaviors across mammals, the paucity of intranasal OT research investigating responses to social cues in parents and particularly mothers of young children is a critical limitation. In the current study, we recorded cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether intranasal OT affects the early neural responses to emotional faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants. Using a double-blind, within-subjects design, mothers (n = 38) were administered intranasal OT and placebo on separate sessions and presented with happy and sad infant and adult faces while ERP components reflecting face-sensitive brain activation and attention allocation were measured. We hypothesized that ERP responses to faces would be larger in the OT condition and that the effects of OT on ERP responses would be more pronounced for infant faces. The amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 ERP component were larger in the OT condition to infant and adult faces, but no clear support was found for the hypothesis that the responses to infant faces would be more susceptible to OT effects than the responses to adult faces. The attention-sensitive late positive potential (LPP) component was not modulated by intranasal substance condition. The results are in line with the view that OT acts to enhance the perceptual salience of social and emotional stimuli. Demonstrating such effects in mothers of young children encourages further investigation of the potential of intranasal OT to affect the perception of social cues relevant for parent-child interaction.
利用鼻内给予催产素（OT）的研究表明，OT 可能会增加对社会线索的注意力和敏感性，例如面孔。鉴于 OT 在哺乳动物的父母行为中起着关键作用，鼻内 OT 研究对父母特别是幼儿的母亲对社会线索的反应的研究很少，这是一个关键的局限性。在当前的研究中，我们记录了皮质事件相关电位（ERP），以研究鼻内 OT 是否会影响 1 岁婴儿母亲对情绪面孔的早期神经反应。使用双盲、自身对照设计，母亲（n=38）在单独的会议中接受鼻内 OT 和安慰剂治疗，并呈现快乐和悲伤的婴儿和成人面孔，同时测量反映面孔敏感脑激活和注意力分配的 ERP 成分。我们假设 ERP 对面孔的反应在 OT 条件下会更大，并且 OT 对 ERP 反应的影响在婴儿面孔上会更明显。在 OT 条件下，婴儿和成人面孔的面孔敏感 N170 ERP 成分的振幅更大，但没有明确的证据表明婴儿面孔的反应比成人面孔的反应更容易受到 OT 效应的影响。注意力敏感的晚期正电位（LPP）成分不受鼻内物质条件的调节。这些结果与 OT 增强社会和情感刺激的感知显著性的观点一致。在幼儿的母亲中证明这种效应，鼓励进一步研究鼻内 OT 对与亲子互动相关的社会线索感知的潜在影响。
