Abstract
Oxytocin (OT) signalling represents one of the most critical systems involved in human social behaviour. Although several studies have examined the relationship between social functioning and peripheral OT levels, the association between OT and the development of social attention has not been well studied. Therefore, we investigated the developmental relationship between gaze fixation for social cues and OT levels during young childhood. We examined visual attention using an eye tracking system in infants and children (5–90 months of age) and measured the concentration of OT in saliva samples. We observed a negative association between age and both attention toward social cues and salivary OT levels, and a positive association between age and attention for non-social cues. We also observed that salivary OT levels were modulated by polymorphisms in oxytocin receptor (OXTR) rs53576. Our results suggest that there is an age-dependent association between visual attention for social cues and OT levels in infants and children, and that the development of visual attention to the eyes as social cues is associated with both OXTR polymorphisms and OT levels. Such findings indicate that OT and OXTR status may provide insight into the atypical development of social attention in infants and young children.
Highlights
Oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide secreted from the posterior pituitary, has physiological functions in labour and lactation, and increasing evidence indicates that OT plays an important role in modulating social behaviour in diverse species[1]
We hypothesized that low visual attention for social cues would be associated with low salivary OT levels and/or the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) “risk” allele, and that the associations between these factors would be modulated by developmental changes
We investigated the developmental relationships between gaze fixation for social cues and OT levels in infants and young children between the ages of 6 and 90 months
Summary
Oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide secreted from the posterior pituitary, has physiological functions in labour and lactation, and increasing evidence indicates that OT plays an important role in modulating social behaviour in diverse species[1]. Research has suggested that oxytocin receptors (OXTRs) are expressed within specific brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and amygdala in rodents and sheep[8], as well as in humans[9] These areas are involved in social behaviour, including reproductive and maternal behaviours, affiliation and attachment, and reactivity to social stress in nonhuman mammals[10]. Several studies have used eye tracking software to compare atypical responses for social cues (e.g., human upper body, geometric patterns, or social images, etc.), such as those that occur in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), to those of individuals who have undergone typical development[22, 23] This approach enables researchers to measure, with high precision and accuracy, at what a participant is looking and for how long. We hypothesized that low visual attention for social cues would be associated with low salivary OT levels and/or the OXTR “risk” allele, and that the associations between these factors would be modulated by developmental changes
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