Abstract
The nonapeptide oxytocin (OXT) and its receptor (OXTR) have been implicated in social cognition, empathy, emotion and stress regulation in humans. Previous studies reported associations between OXT and OXTR genetic polymorphisms and risk for disorders characterized by impaired socio-emotional functioning, such as schizophrenia and autism. Here we investigate the influence of two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the OXTR gene on a measure of socio-emotional functioning in schizophrenic patients. OXTR SNPs that were previously investigated in other studies were genotyped in 145 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV and 145 healthy controls matched for age and gender. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was used to assess cognitive (‘perspective taking’), affective (‘empathic concern’) and self-related (‘personal distress’) dimensions of empathy. No group differences in genotype frequencies were observed. MANCOVA revealed a significant main (F [1,282] = 10.464; p<0.01) and interaction effect (genotype by diagnosis: F [1,282] = 4.329; p<0.05) of OXTR SNP rs2254298(A>GG) with ‘empathic concern’. Within the schizophrenia group, linear regression analysis determined OXTR rs2254298 genotype, PANSS negative and general symptom score, and age of disease onset as being significantly associated with ‘empathic concern’. OXTR rs2254298 significantly impacted PANSS general psychopathology scores. No associations were found for OXTR rs53576, IRI ‘perspective taking’ or ‘personal distress’ ratings. Our preliminary findings support hypotheses about an involvement of OXTR rs2254298 in emotional empathy in schizophrenic and healthy individuals, warranting independent replication.
Highlights
Social-cognitive deficits are an important clinical feature of schizophrenia and have drawn much attention over the past decades [1] as disturbances of the ‘social brain’ essentially impact psychosocial proficiency [2,3] and might represent trait-markers for this disease [4]
Chi-squared tests revealed no significant differences of genotype distributions and allele frequencies for the studied single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between groups, and frequencies were unrelated to gender in the overall sample (x2 test, p.0.05)
The potential relationship of allelic variations of OXTR rs2254298 and rs53576 with various psychopathological or temperamental conditions has been investigated in several studies
Summary
Social-cognitive deficits are an important clinical feature of schizophrenia and have drawn much attention over the past decades [1] as disturbances of the ‘social brain’ essentially impact psychosocial proficiency [2,3] and might represent trait-markers for this disease [4]. OXT is produced in the hypothalamic paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic nuclei (SON). Their magnocellular neurons mainly project to the neurohypophysis, whereas central OXT, after its axonal or somatodendritic release, can modulate functional activity in many brain regions including cortical areas, amygdala, striatum, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, ventral tegmental area and brainstem nuclei [16,17,18,19,20,21]. A substantial body of research indicates its regulative function for social cognition [26,27,28], social memory [29,30,31], prosocial behavior [32,33,34], attachment [35] and trust [36]. OXT interacts with the dopaminergic system and stimulates the attribution of salience to social and emotional stimuli [43,44,45,46]
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