Minami Kana, Yuhi Teruko, Higashida Haruhiro, Yokoyama Shigeru, Tsuji Takahiro, Tsuji Chiharu
Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan.
Division of Socio-Cognitive-Neuroscience, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University and University of Fukui, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan.
Brain Sci. 2022 Sep 15;12(9):1246. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12091246.
Oxytocin (OT) is a neuropeptide involved in human social behaviors and reproduction. Non-invasive OT levels in saliva have recently roused interest as it does not require a specialized medical setting. Here, we observed one woman's basal serum and saliva OT from pregnancy to 1 year postpartum to track OT concentration changes over this period. We examined the changes in salivary OT levels over time in response to maternal physiological and behavioral responses. The fluctuation of saliva OT levels is well correlated with serum OT during pregnancy and breastfeeding. However, while salivary OT increased rapidly during direct interaction (social interaction tests) with the infant and/or when the mother was watching her own infant's video (video tests), no increase was observed in serum. We used social interaction and video tests on a group of mothers (nine mothers for social interaction and six for the video test) to clarify these single-subject results. In both tests, the mothers had increased OT in their saliva but not serum. Our study may suggest that salivary samples reflect not only the physical but also the emotional state and that saliva samples may be useful for monitoring women's OT levels during pre- and postpartum periods. Further studies with larger sample numbers are necessary to confirm the rapid changes in salivary OT levels in response to maternal physiological and behavioral responses.
催产素（OT）是一种参与人类社会行为和生殖的神经肽。唾液中的无创催产素水平最近引起了人们的兴趣，因为它不需要专门的医疗环境。在这里，我们观察了一名女性从怀孕到产后1年的基础血清和唾液催产素水平，以追踪这段时间内催产素浓度的变化。我们研究了唾液催产素水平随时间的变化，以应对母亲的生理和行为反应。在怀孕和哺乳期间，唾液催产素水平的波动与血清催产素水平密切相关。然而，在与婴儿直接互动（社交互动测试）期间和/或母亲观看自己婴儿的视频（视频测试）时，唾液催产素迅速增加，而血清中未观察到增加。我们对一组母亲（9名母亲进行社交互动测试，6名母亲进行视频测试）进行了社交互动和视频测试，以阐明这些单受试者结果。在两项测试中，母亲们的唾液中催产素增加，但血清中没有增加。我们的研究可能表明，唾液样本不仅反映身体状态，还反映情绪状态，并且唾液样本可能有助于监测女性在产前和产后期间的催产素水平。需要进一步进行更大样本量的研究，以确认唾液催产素水平对母亲生理和行为反应的快速变化。
