Oxytocin may make the brain take notice of faces in autism

Main Category: Autism
Also Included In: Endocrinology
Article Date: 19 Aug 2013 - 1:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Oxytocin may make the brain take notice of faces in autism

Difficulty in registering and responding to the facial expressions of other people is a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Relatedly, functional imaging studies have shown that individuals with ASD display altered brain activations when processing facial images.

The hormone oxytocin plays a vital role in the social interactions of both animals and humans. In fact, multiple studies conducted with healthy volunteers have provided evidence for beneficial effects of oxytocin in terms of increased trust, improved emotion recognition, and preference for social stimuli.

This combination of scientific work led German researchers to hypothesize about the influence of oxytocin in ASD. Dr. Gregor Domes, from the University of Freiburg and first author of the new study, explained: "In the present study, we were interested in the question of whether a single dose of oxytocin would change brain responses to social compared to non-social stimuli in individuals with autism spectrum disorder."

They found that oxytocin did show an effect on social processing in the individuals with ASD, "suggesting that oxytocin may help to treat a basic brain function that goes awry in autism spectrum disorders," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

To conduct this study, they recruited fourteen individuals with ASD and fourteen control volunteers, all of whom completed a face- and house-matching task while undergoing imaging scans. Each participant completed this task and scanning procedure twice, once after receiving a nasal spray containing oxytocin and once after receiving a nasal spray containing placebo. The order of the sprays was randomized, and the tests were administered one week apart.

Using two sets of stimuli in the matching task, one of faces and one of houses, allowed the researchers to not only compare the effects of the oxytocin and placebo administrations, but also allowed them to discriminate findings between specific effects to only social stimuli and non-specific effects to more general brain processing.

What they found was intriguing. The data indicate that oxytocin specifically increases responses of the amygdala to social stimuli in individuals with ASD. The amygdala, the authors explain, "has been associated with processing of emotional stimuli, threat-related stimuli, face processing, and vigilance for salient stimuli".

This finding suggests oxytocin might promote the salience of social stimuli in ASD. Increased salience of social stimuli might support behavioral training of social skills in ASD.

These data support the idea that oxytocin may be a promising approach in the treatment of ASD and could stimulate further research, even clinical trials, on the exploration of oxytocin as an add-on treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
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The article is "Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on the Neural Basis of Face Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder" by Gregor Domes, Markus Heinrichs, Ekkehardt Kumbier, Annette Grossmann, Karlheinz Hauenstein, and Sabine C. Herpertz (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.02.007). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 74, Issue 3 (August 1, 2013), published by Elsevier.

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Oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts

Main Category: Endocrinology
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Aug 2013 - 1:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts

"The Love Hormone", Oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts- in men it improves the ability to identify competitive relationships whereas in women it facilitates the ability to identify kinship. "These findings are in agreement with previous studies on the social differences between the sexes: women tend to be more communal and familial in their behavior, whereas men are more inclined to be competitive and striving to improve their social status", said Prof. Simone Shamay-Tsoory from the Dept. of Psychology at the University of Haifa who led the research.

The hormone Oxytocin is released in our bodies in various social situations, and it is better known as "The Love Hormone" since our bodies release it at high concentrations during positive social interactions such as falling in love, experiencing an orgasm or giving birth and breastfeeding. In her previous researches, Prof. Shamay-Tsoory discovered that the hormone is also released in our body during negative social interactions such as jealousy or gloating.

In the current study, conducted with the help of research students Meytal Fischer-Shofty and Yechiel Levkovitz, researchers tried to find out what effect Oxytocin would have on women's and men's accurate perception of social interactions. 62 men and women aged 20-37 years participated in the current research. Half of the participants received an intranasal dose of Oxytocin while the other half received a placebo. After a week, the groups switched with participants undergoing the same procedure with the other substance (i.e. Placebo or Oxytocin).

Following treatment, video clips showing various social interactions were screened. Participants were asked to analyze the relationships presented in the clips by answering questions that focused mainly on indentifying relationships of kinship, intimacy and competition. Participants were expected to base their answers, among other things, on gestures, body language and facial expressions expressed by the individuals in the clips.

The results showed that Oxytocin improved the ability of all the participants to better interpret social interactions in general. When the researchers examined the differences between the sexes they discovered that following treatment with Oxytocin, men's ability to correctly interpret competitive relationships improved, whereas in women it was the ability to correctly identify kinship that improved. Surprisingly, researchers discovered that "The Love Hormone" doesn't help women or men to better identify intimate situations. According to them, since the ability to correctly identify intimate situations was substantially low among all participants in the study, there is evidence to say that correctly identifying an intimate relationship between two people is intricate and complicated.

"Our results coincide with the theory that claims the social-behavioral differences between men and women are caused by a combination of cultural as well as biological factors that are mainly hormonal", concluded Prof. Shamay-Tsoory.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our endocrinology section for the latest news on this subject. Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:

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University of Haifa. "Oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 2 Aug. 2013. Web.
3 Aug. 2013. APA

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'Oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts'

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