Acute oxytocin effects in inferring others’ beliefs and social emotions in people at clinical high risk for psychosis

Abstract

Social deficits are key hallmarks of the Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P) state and of established psychotic disorders, and contribute to impaired social functioning, indicating a potential target for interventions. However, current treatments do not significantly ameliorate social impairments in CHR-P individuals. Given its critical role in social behaviour and cognition, the oxytocinergic (OT) system is a promising target for novel interventions in CHR-P subjects. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, 30 CHR-P males were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on two occasions, once after 40IU self-administered intranasal OT and once after placebo. A modified version of the Sally-Anne task was used to assess brain activation during inferring others' beliefs and social emotions. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test was acquired prior to the first scan to test whether OT effects were moderated by baseline social-emotional abilities. OT did not modulate behavioural performances but reduced activation in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus compared with placebo while inferring others' social emotions. Furthermore, the relationship between brain activation and task performance after OT administration was moderated by baseline social-emotional abilities. While task accuracy during inferring others' social emotion increased with decreasing activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in CHR-P individuals with low social-emotional abilities, there was no such relationship in CHR-P individuals with high social-emotional abilities. Our findings may suggest that acute OT administration enhances neural efficiency in the inferior frontal gyrus during inferring others' social emotions in those CHR-P subjects with low baseline social-emotional abilities.

Neural and behavioral effects of parent training on emotion recognition in mothers rearing children with ADHD

“…Schmidt et al, 2020), which agrees with our ndings. Furthermore, additional ROI analysis showed activation changes in overlapping region in the left visual cortex (including occipital fusiform gyrus).…”

Connectome dysfunction in patients at clinical high risk for psychosis and modulation by oxytocin

“…These include anxiolytic effects (36), modulation of social and emotional cognition (37–40), hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis regulation (36) and parasympathetic modulation of the heart rhythm (41). In our previous CHR-P work, we demonstrated that oxytocin modulates frontal activation during mentalising (42), anterior cingulate neurochemistry (43) and resting cerebral blood flow in the hippocampus among numerous other regions (44). Independent evidence further suggests that oxytocin modulates connectivity within resting-state networks in healthy volunteers (45,46) and ‘normalises’ aberrant connectivity in several clinical populations, including patients with social anxiety (47), post-traumatic stress disorder (48) and autism (49).…”

Parent training effects on emotion recognition in mothers rearing children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A randomized controlled functional magnetic resonance imaging study

“…Using a more lenient threshold, we observed increased activation in temporal to occipital regions at Time 2 in the PT group compared with the nonPT group. Other neuroimaging studies using RMET produced similar results(Adams et al, 2010;Castelli et al, 2010;Schmidt et al, 2020). Since the fusiform gyrus is involved in the perception of emotions in facial expressions(Haxby et al, 2002;Mier et al, 2010), the changes in brain activity in the PT group might re ect their increased sensitivity to the other's mental states.Altogether, our ndings suggest that PT interventions in mothers provide them with a better understanding of their children, helping to create a more nurturing environment, and reducing parenting stress, subsequently improving activation in the fusiform gyrus during socioemotional processing.…”