The effect of intranasal oxytocin on visual processing and salience of human faces

Daniel Hovey,Lars Westberg,Louise Martens,Siri Leknes,Bruno Laeng

doi:10.1038/s41398-020-00991-3

Abstract

The mechanisms underlying the role of oxytocin (OT) as a regulator of social behavior in mammals are only partly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that OT increases the salience of social stimuli. We carried out a randomized, double-blind, cross-over study of the effects of OT on binocular rivalry, a visual phenomenon underpinned by the interplay of excitation and inhibition in the cortex. A final sample of 45 participants viewed images of social stimuli (faces with different emotional expressions) and non-social stimuli (houses and Gabor patches). We demonstrate a robust effect that intranasal OT increases the salience of human faces in binocular rivalry, such that dominance durations of faces are longer—this effect is not modulated by the facial expression. We tentatively show that OT treatment increases dominance durations for non-social stimuli. Our results lend support to the social salience hypothesis of OT, and in addition offer provisional support for the role of OT in influencing excitation-inhibition balance in the brain.

Highlights

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has long been implicated in the regulation of social behavior in mammals, including humans[1]
Dominance durations Average dominance durations of uninterrupted percepts were calculated for face, house, and Gabor percepts
There was no significant difference between the oxytocin and placebo condition with regards to alternation rate between dominant Gabor percepts, defined as switches/30 s (t(42) = 1.45; p = 0.16). To our knowledge, this is the first study to utilize binocular rivalry to investigate the effects of intranasal OT on visual processing

Summary

Introduction

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has long been implicated in the regulation of social behavior in mammals, including humans[1]. While the effects of exogenously administered OT are not confined solely to social behavior or social cognition, many studies have indicated that exogenously administered OT affects for example, memory for faces[6], detection of social words[7], and learning from social feedback[8]. Such effects have been observed for both positive and negative stimuli[9,10,11,12,13]. While OT presumably has several different effects on social cognition, the social salience hypothesis would explain much of the results of studies on exogenously administered OT

Methods

Results

Conclusion