Oxytocin release deficit and social cognition in craniopharyngioma patients

Abstract

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide known to affect social behaviour and cognition. Craniopharyngioma patients are considered to have an oxytocin‐release‐deficit caused by a rare tumour affecting the pituitary and/or the hypothalamus relevant for oxytocin production and release. To assess social behaviour and socio‐cognitive abilities in this patient group, we tested 13 patients and 23 healthy controls on self‐report questionnaires and an eye‐tracking paradigm including fast facial emotion recognition. Additionally, saliva oxytocin levels acquired before and after a physical stress induction were available from a previous study, representing the reactivity of the oxytocin system. The data revealed three major results. First, patients with an oxytocin‐release‐deficit scored higher on self‐reported autistic traits and reduced levels of hedonia for social encounters, although they showed no impairments in attributing mental states. Second, patients showed more difficulties in the fast emotion recognition task. Third, although automatic gaze behaviour during emotion recognition did not differ between groups, gaze behaviour was related to the reactivity of the oxytocin system across all participants. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the importance of investigating the reactivity of the oxytocin system and its relationship with social cognition. Our findings suggest that reduced emotional processing abilities may represent a pathological feature in a group of craniopharyngioma patients, indicating that this patient group might benefit from specific treatments within the social domain.

Peripheral oxytocin levels are linked to hypothalamic gray matter volume in autistic adults: a cross-sectional secondary data analysis

“…For example, craniopharyngeoma patients, who frequently suffer from a lesion of the HTH caused either directly by the tumor or indirectly by therapeutic resection of the tumor, were found to have a high prevalence of socio-behavioral impairments 28 , 29 . In accordance with the hypothesis that disruptions in OXT regulation may contribute to these symptoms in craniopharyngeoma patients, there have been reports of reduced OXT levels correlating with the extent of hypothalamic damage 30 along with significantly heightened levels of autistic traits and increased difficulties in rapid emotion recognition compared to controls 31 . This raises the question whether the socioemotional characteristics found in ASD could be similarly related to OXT and structural alterations in the HTH.…”

The neurohypophyseal hormone oxytocin and eating behaviors: a narrative review

“…Patients with craniopharyngioma, one of the most common causes of hypothalamic damage, usually exhibit lower circulating levels of OT at baseline and after stimulation [ 72 ]. Several studies have been published seeking to determine whether OT deficiency was associated with changes in social cognition [ 73 ] and eating behaviors in craniopharyngioma survivors. Anecdotal cases suggested that the intranasal administration of OT improved emotional tasks and social behaviors in young survivors of craniopharyngioma with low (case report) [ 74 ] and detectable basal levels of OT (case series) [ 75 ].…”

The oxytocin system in patients with craniopharyngioma: A systematic review

“…The search yielded 67 unique articles, of which eight studies were included. Of the eight included studies, data of 72 patients are reported on across two case reports (Cook et al, 2016;Hsu et al, 2017), one interventional study administering a single dose of 24IU intranasal oxytocin (Hoffmann et al, 2017), and five cross-sectional, case-control studies (Brandi et al, 2020;Daubenbüchel et al, 2016;Daubenbüchel et al, 2019;Gebert et al, 2018;Özyurt et al, 2020). No papers assessing genetic associations were found from the search.…”