Attentional control and interpretation of facial expression after oxytocin administration to typically developed male adults

PLoS One. 2015 Feb 6;10(2):e0116918. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116918. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Deficits in attentional-inhibitory control have been reported to correlate to anger, hostility, and aggressive behavior; therefore, inhibitory control appears to play an important role in prosocial behavior. Moreover, recent studies have demonstrated that oxytocin (OT) exerts a prosocial effect (e.g., decreasing negative behaviors, such as aggression) on humans. However, it is unknown whether the positively valenced effect of OT on sociality is associated with enhanced attentional-inhibitory control. In the present study, we hypothesized that OT enhances attentional-inhibitory control and that the positively valenced effect of OT on social cognition is associated with enhanced attentional-inhibitory control. In a single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial, we tested this hypothesis using 20 healthy male volunteers. We considered a decrease in the hostility detection ratio, which reflects the positively valenced interpretation of other individuals' facial expressions, to be an index of the positively valenced effects of OT (we reused the results of our previously published study). As a measure of attentional-inhibitory control, we employed a modified version of the flanker task (i.e., a shorter conflict duration indicated higher inhibitory control). These results failed to demonstrate any significant behavioral effects of OT (i.e., neither a positively valenced effect on facial cognition nor an effect on attentional-inhibitory control). However, the enhancement of attentional-inhibitory control after OT administration significantly correlated to the positively valenced effects on the interpretation of uncertain facial cognition (i.e., neutral and ambiguous facial expressions).

Publication types

  • Clinical Trial
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attention / drug effects*
  • Expressed Emotion*
  • Face
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Oxytocin / administration & dosage*
  • Visual Perception / drug effects*

Substances

  • Oxytocin

Grants and funding

H. Higashida was supported by the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences, M. Kikuchi was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research (Number 24000012) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and Y. Minabe was supported by the Center of Innovation Program from Japan Science and Technology Agency, JST, Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.