How do hypothalamic nonapeptides shape youth’s sociality? A systematic review on oxytocin, vasopressin and human socio-emotional development

Abstract

The hypothalamic nonapeptides oxytocin and vasopressin are important modulators of socio-affective behaviours in a wide variety of animal species, including humans. Nevertheless, there is little research addressing their possible roles on socio-affective dimensions of human behaviour across development, during which considerable behavioural and physiological change occurs. Questions still remain about the extent to which findings from adults may directly apply to earlier phases of human development. In this article, we systematically summarize and discuss all existing studies investigating the developmental association of endogenous levels of hypothalamic neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin with human social behaviour or on its disruption in paediatric populations. Evidence is sparse insofar as there are still relatively few developmental studies and limited due to correlational research designs and unreliability of methods currently used for neuropeptide measurements in biological fluids. The findings to date generally converge with adult evidence, but also suggest that important differences between age stages may exist. Further studies focusing these differences may prove critical for informing drug development for socio-affective deficits in paediatric populations.

Effects of Stroking on Salivary Oxytocin and Cortisol in Guide Dogs: Preliminary Results

“…However, the cortisol concentration after the PC (mean ± SEM = 0.18 ± 0.03 µg/dL) was higher compared to the NC (mean ± SEM = 0.14 ± 0.02), maybe due to the positive arousal [63]. The comparison with a negative, but static and unstressful, situation prevented possible bias due to the endogenous release of oxytocin in response to distress, as reported in humans [35][36][37][38][39], or due to locomotory activation [26]. In contrast to the studies mentioned above, we hypothesize that a decrease in salivary OXT could be correlated with a negative emotional impact.…”

“…Another study in humans found that higher blood OXT levels after a stressful interpersonal task were associated with more anxiety, suggesting that oxytocin could be a marker of distress [38]. Furthermore, in humans oxytocin levels seem to be positively correlated with increased maternal separation distress in children [39].…”

Determinants of Ageism against Older Adults: A Systematic Review

“…This tool was first piloted in a subset of 10 references (LN, SM), and adjustments were made as necessary. Following the procedure adopted by other authors [33,34], we decided to use a customised appraisal tool to make sure we could capture specific aspects of the methodologies used in this field that, while important, could not be easily captured by a general-purpose instrument. For our purposes, we considered that aspects related with testing of causality and psychometric qualities of the measures used were important, but we could not find any existing measure specifically accounting for these two dimensions together.…”

Interaction between polymorphisms of the oxytocinergic system genes and emotion perception in inpatients with anorexia nervosa

“…However, we found an association between carrying the A allele of rs4869317 and the increased eating disorders psychopathology level in the HCs group. In the context of theory concerning the potential role of LNPEP in social cognition and behaviour (see Torres, Martins, Santos, Prata, & Veríssimo, ; Zhang et al, ) and in the context of findings that these difficulties may be a characteristic for individuals with AN (Ambwani et al, ), the obtained result may have implications for the design of future studies investigating the role of the oxytocinergic system genes in developing eating disorders. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which the association between the level of eating disorders symptoms and carrying a specific allele of the LNPEP rs4869317 was found in healthy participants.…”