Tillman Rachael, Gordon Ilanit, Naples Adam, Rolison Max, Leckman James F, Feldman Ruth, Pelphrey Kevin A, McPartland James C
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, United States.
Yale Child Study Center, School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2019 Mar 11;13:71. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00071. eCollection 2019.
Face perception is a highly conserved process that directs our attention from infancy and is supported by specialized neural circuitry. Oxytocin (OT) can increase accuracy and detection of emotional faces, but these effects are mediated by valence, individual differences, and context. We investigated the temporal dynamics of OT's influence on the neural substrates of face perception using event related potentials (ERPs). In a double blind, placebo controlled within-subject design, 21 healthy male adults inhaled OT or placebo and underwent ERP imaging during two face processing tasks. Experiment 1 investigated effects of OT on neural correlates of fearful vs. neutral facial expressions, and Experiment 2 manipulated point-of-gaze to neutral faces. In Experiment 1, we found that OT reduced N170 latency to fearful faces. In Experiment 2, N170 latency was decreased when participant gaze was directed to the eyes of neutral faces; however, there were no OT-associated effects in response to different facial features. Findings suggest OT modulates early stages of social perception for socially complex information such as emotional faces relative to neutral. These results are consistent with models suggesting OT impacts the salience of socially informative cues during processing, which leads to downstream effects in behavior. Future work should examine how OT affects neural processes underlying basic components of social behavior (such as, face perception) while varying emotional expression of stimuli or comparing different characteristics of participants (e.g., gender, personality traits).
面部感知是一个高度保守的过程，从婴儿期就引导我们的注意力，并且由专门的神经回路支持。催产素（OT）可以提高对情绪面孔的识别准确性和检测能力，但这些影响是由效价、个体差异和情境介导的。我们使用事件相关电位（ERP）研究了OT对面部感知神经基础影响的时间动态。在一项双盲、安慰剂对照的受试者内设计中，21名健康男性成年人吸入OT或安慰剂，并在两项面部处理任务中接受ERP成像。实验1研究了OT对恐惧与中性面部表情神经相关性的影响，实验2操纵了对中性面孔的注视点。在实验1中，我们发现OT缩短了对恐惧面孔的N170潜伏期。在实验2中，当参与者的目光指向中性面孔的眼睛时，N170潜伏期缩短；然而，对不同面部特征的反应没有OT相关效应。研究结果表明，OT调节社会感知的早期阶段，用于处理社会复杂信息，如相对于中性面孔的情绪面孔。这些结果与模型一致，表明OT在处理过程中影响社会信息线索的显著性，从而导致行为的下游效应。未来的工作应该研究OT如何影响社会行为基本组成部分（如面部感知）背后的神经过程，同时改变刺激的情绪表达或比较参与者的不同特征（如性别、人格特质）。
