The Impact of a Single Administration of Intranasal Oxytocin on the Recognition of Basic Emotions in Humans: A Meta-Analysis

People often favor ingroup over outgroup members when choosing to cooperate. Such ingroup-favored cooperation is promoted by oxytocin-a neuropeptide shown to facilitate social cognition and that has emerged as a pharmacological target for treatments of social functioning deficits. The current study applied a dual-process model to investigate whether and how intuitive and reflective cognitive styles affect the oxytocin-motivated ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We examined oxytocin effects on ingroup favoritism in a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design where cognitive processing (intuition vs reflection) was experimentally manipulated in healthy Chinese males (n = 150). We also supplemented this experimental manipulation with an individual difference analysis by assessing participants' inclination toward intuition or reflection in daily life. Intranasal administration of oxytocin (vs placebo) increased ingroup favoritism among participants primed to be intuitive or those who preferred intuition in daily life. In contrast, oxytocin decreased ingroup favoritism in participants primed to rely on reflective thinking or those who preferred reflective decision-making in daily life. Our results demonstrate that oxytocin has distinct functional roles when different cognitive styles (ie, intuition vs reflection) are promoted during social cooperation in a group situation. Our findings have implications for oxytocin pharmacotherapy of social dysfunction in that whether the effects of oxytocin on social functioning are facilitative, debilitative, or null, depends on an individual's cognitive style.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In addition, behavioral studies have shown evidence for distinct oxytocin effects on fast and slow emotion recognition. Oxytocin facilitated recognition of happy expression during fast exposure but enhanced recognition of fearful expression during slow recognition (Shahrestani et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Opposing Oxytocin Effects on Intergroup Cooperative Behavior in Intuitive and Reflective Minds

Liu

Rand

et al. 2015

“…Additionally, we found that oxytocin (40 IU) improved emotion recognition only in women. A previous study reported that oxytocin improves recognition of a range of emotions (Shahrestani et al, 2013) and another study found that the effects of oxytocin on emotional stimuli may differ in women and men (Domes et al, 2010). The full profile of subjective and behavioral effects of oxytocin remains to be determined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Single doses of intranasal oxytocin can also produce prosocial, anxiolytic, and affiliative effects in healthy adults (Bos et al, 2011;Lim and Young, 2006). For example, oxytocin has been shown to increase trust and generosity (Kosfeld et al, 2005;Zak et al, 2007), reduce responses to social stressors (Heinrichs et al, 2003), increase positive communication (Ditzen et al, 2009), and, like MDMA, enhance recognition of positive emotional states and dampen responses to negative emotions in others (Di Simplicio et al, 2009;Domes et al, 2007a,b;Marsh et al, 2010;Shahrestani et al, 2013). On the other hand, other studies have failed to detect prosocial effects of oxytocin, and indeed, found that it can produce antisocial effects such as feelings of envy and mistrust (Bartz et al, 2011a;Declerck et al, 2010;Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of MDMA and Intranasal Oxytocin on Social and Emotional Processing

Kirkpatrick

Lee

Wardle

et al. 2014

120

129

MDMA (±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, 'ecstasy') is used recreationally, reportedly because it increases feelings of empathy, sociability, and interpersonal closeness. One line of evidence suggests that MDMA produces these effects by releasing oxytocin, a peptide involved in social bonding. In the current study, we investigated the acute effects of MDMA and oxytocin on social and emotional processing in healthy human volunteers. MDMA users (N ¼ 65) participated in a 4-session, within-between-subjects study in which they received oral MDMA (0.75, 1.5 mg/kg), intranasal oxytocin (20 or 40 IU), or placebo under double-blind conditions. The primary outcomes included measures of emotion recognition and sociability (desire to be with others). Cardiovascular and subjective effects were also assessed. As expected, MDMA dose-dependently increased heart rate and blood pressure and feelings of euphoria (eg, 'High' and 'Like Drug'). On measures of social function, MDMA impaired recognition of angry and fearful facial expressions, and the larger dose (1.5 mg/kg) increased desire to be with others, compared with placebo. Oxytocin produced small but significant increases in feelings of sociability and enhanced recognition of sad facial expressions. Additionally, responses to oxytocin were related to responses to MDMA with subjects on two subjective measures of sociability. Thus, MDMA increased euphoria and feelings of sociability, perhaps by reducing sensitivity to subtle signs of negative emotions in others. The present findings provide only limited support for the idea that oxytocin produces the prosocial effects of MDMA.

“…In our study, we observed an increase in pMCC activity only under OXT and only in social stimulus-paired trials. OXT has been shown to increase social cognition in the face of both positive and negative stimuli (Shahrestani et al, 2013). It follows that OXT could generally increase the perception of social-related stimuli during fear conditioning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin Facilitates Pavlovian Fear Learning in Males

Eckstein

Scheele

Patin

et al. 2015

In human evolution, social group living and Pavlovian fear conditioning have evolved as adaptive mechanisms promoting survival and reproductive success. The evolutionarily conserved hypothalamic peptide oxytocin is a key modulator of human sociality, but its effects on fear conditioning are still elusive. In the present randomized controlled study involving 97 healthy male subjects, we therefore employed functional magnetic resonance imaging and simultaneous skin conductance response (SCR) measures to characterize the modulatory influence of intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) on Pavlovian fear conditioning. We found that the peptide strengthened conditioning on both the behavioral and neural levels. Specifically, subjects exhibited faster task-related responses and enhanced SCRs to fear-associated stimuli in the late phase of conditioning, which was paralleled by heightened activity in cingulate cortex subregions in the absence of changes in amygdala function. This speaks against amygdalocentric views of oxytocin having pure anxiolytic-like effects. Instead, it suggests that the peptide enables extremely rapid and flexible adaptation to fear signals in social contexts, which may confer clear evolutionary advantages but could also elevate vulnerability for the pathological sequelae of interpersonal trauma.