Preference for novel faces in male infant monkeys predicts cerebrospinal fluid oxytocin concentrations later in life

Jesus E Madrid,Laura A Del Rosso,John P Capitanio,Joseph P Garner,Karen J Parker,Laura A Calonder,Valentina Sclafani,Katie Chun,Ozge Oztan

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-13109-5

Abstract

The ability to recognize individuals is a critical skill acquired early in life for group living species. In primates, individual recognition occurs predominantly through face discrimination. Despite the essential adaptive value of this ability, robust individual differences in conspecific face recognition exist, yet its associated biology remains unknown. Although pharmacological administration of oxytocin has implicated this neuropeptide in face perception and social memory, no prior research has tested the relationship between individual differences in face recognition and endogenous oxytocin concentrations. Here we show in a male rhesus monkey cohort (N = 60) that infant performance in a task used to determine face recognition ability (specifically, the ability of animals to show a preference for a novel face) robustly predicts cerebrospinal fluid, but not blood, oxytocin concentrations up to five years after behavioural assessment. These results argue that central oxytocin biology may be related to individual face perceptual abilities necessary for group living, and that these differences are stable traits.

Highlights

A fundamental challenge confronted by individuals living in social groups is the ability to recognize others
We first confirmed that the effect of preference for novel faces was due to the duration spent attending to the novel face, rather than differences in time spent attending to faces overall, by including the log[10] of each measure as separate variables in a Weighted Least Squares-General Linear Model (WLS-GLM) predicting CSF OT concentration
Duration attending to a novel face predicted CSF OT concentration (WLS-GLM: F1,53 = 9.9044; partial r = 0.40; β1 = 40.65 ± 12.92; P = 0.0027) despite controlling for total time attending to both faces

Summary

Introduction

A fundamental challenge confronted by individuals living in social groups is the ability to recognize others. The present study addressed several fundamental gaps in knowledge by testing the relationship between individual variation in a face recognition task and endogenous OT biology, as well the relationship between peripheral and central OT measurements. Behavioural performance did not predict blood OT concentrations, and blood and CSF OT measurements were unrelated within individuals To our knowledge these are the first data linking individual differences in face processing to endogenous OT biology in primates, a relationship that spans juvenility into adulthood. These data suggest the importance of measuring CSF, rather than blood, OT concentrations when addressing social perception traits in primates

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Results

Conclusion