Kinetics of oxytocin effects on amygdala and striatal reactivity vary between women and men

Lieberz, Jana; Scheele, Dirk; Spengler, Franny B.; Matheisen, Tatjana; Schneider, Lía; Stoffel‐Wagner, Birgit; Kinfe, Thomas M.; Hurlemann, René

doi:10.1038/s41386-019-0582-6

Cited by 84 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…While intranasal OXT consistently decreases amygdala responses to threatening faces in males it has the opposite effect in females 51,55,56 , and an early study reported that increased amygdala responses to fear in a small number of female subjects were not influenced by gaze towards the eyes 27 . Similarly, another study has found that increased amygdala responses to emotional scenes are not associated with patterns of eye-gaze in women 51 . Thus, while OXT may increase interest in threatening faces/scenes in males it may not do so in females.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism

Kou

Zhao

et al. 2020

Transl Psychiatry

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A key functional effect of intranasal oxytocin with potential therapeutic relevance for autism-spectrum disorder is its reported facilitation of attention towards social stimuli, notably the eye region of faces. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy males, we investigated the robustness of this facilitation of attention by intranasal oxytocin (24IU) towards social cues. Eye-tracking measures of preference for dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli were taken in four different paradigms where autistic individuals tend to exhibit reduced interest in social stimuli. Additionally, we investigated whether oxytocin increases attention towards the eyes relative to other salient face regions in an emotional face paradigm. Results showed that the time spent viewing both dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli was negatively associated with trait autism and significantly increased following intranasal oxytocin. For face stimuli, oxytocin primarily increased gaze towards the eyes of fearful expression faces but not for other face emotions. Overall, our findings demonstrate that oxytocin significantly shifts gaze preference towards social vs. non-social stimuli and to the eyes of fearful faces. Importantly, oxytocin appears generally to shift attention more towards salient social stimuli of particular relevance in the context of autism providing further support for its potential therapeutic use in autism-spectrum disorder.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism

Kou

Zhao

et al. 2020

Transl Psychiatry

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show abstract

“…Several limitations should be acknowledged in the current study. First, we only included male subjects, and there is increasing evidence for sex-dependent effects of OT (Gao et al, 2016;Luo et al, 2017;Lieberz et al, 2019), although we have previously shown no sex-dependent effects of OT on emotional empathy or amygdala responses in the MET (Geng et al, 2018b). Two other studies showing effects of OT on pain empathy have also not found sex-dependent effects (Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2013;Abu-Akel et al, 2015), and so we would predict that similar effects of OT on patterns of eye gaze during the MET would occur in female subjects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts

Kou

Zhao

et al. 2020

Front. Neurosci.

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“…However, we are still lacking an in-depth pharmacodynamics investigation of OT-induced changes in rCBF in women. Previous studies have shown that the effects of the administration of the same dose of intranasal OT to men and women can result in different effects on behaviour and brain function [96][97][98][99][100] . A recent study has shown that differences in the effects of a range of doses of intranasal OT on brain responses to happy and fearful faces between men and women do not simply reflect differences in dose sensitivity, but rather gender-specific effects 101 .…”

Section: Does Intranasal Ot Restore Rcbf Abnormalities In Women With mentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating resting brain perfusion abnormalities and disease target-engagement by intranasal oxytocin in women with bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder and healthy controls

et al. 2020

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Advances in the treatment of bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder (BN/BED) have been marred by our limited understanding of the underpinning neurobiology. Here we measured regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) to map resting perfusion abnormalities in women with BN/BED compared with healthy controls and investigate whether intranasal oxytocin (OT), proposed as a potential treatment, can restore perfusion in disorder-related brain circuits. Twenty-four women with BN/BED and 23 healthy women participated in a randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled study. We used arterial spin labelling MRI to measure rCBF and the effects of an acute dose of intranasal OT (40 IU) or placebo over 18-26 min post dosing, as we have previously shown robust OT-induced changes in resting rCBF in men in a similar time-window (15-36 min post dosing). We tested for effects of treatment, diagnosis and their interaction on extracted rCBF values in anatomical regions-of-interest previously implicated in BN/BED by other neuroimaging modalities, and conducted exploratory whole-brain analyses to investigate previously unidentified brain regions. We demonstrated that women with BN/BED presented increased resting rCBF in the medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices, anterior cingulate gyrus, posterior insula and middle/inferior temporal gyri bilaterally. Hyperperfusion in these areas specifically correlated with eating symptoms severity in patients. Our data did not support a normalizing effect of intranasal OT on perfusion abnormalities in these patients, at least for the specific dose (40 IU) and post-dosing interval (18-26 min) examined. Our findings enhance our understanding of resting brain abnormalities in BN/BED and identify resting rCBF as a non-invasive potential biomarker for disease-related changes and treatment monitoring. They also highlight the need for a comprehensive investigation of intranasal OT pharmacodynamics in women before we can fully ascertain its therapeutic value in disorders affecting predominantly this gender, such as BN/BED.

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Kinetics of oxytocin effects on amygdala and striatal reactivity vary between women and men

Cited by 84 publications

References 68 publications

Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism

Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism

Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts

Investigating resting brain perfusion abnormalities and disease target-engagement by intranasal oxytocin in women with bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder and healthy controls

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