title: Oxytocin attenuates feelings of hostility depending on emotional context and individuals' characteristics.
abstract: In humans, oxytocin (OT) enhances prosocial behaviour. However, it is still unclear how the prosocial effects of OT are modulated by emotional features and/or individuals' characteristics. In a placebo-controlled design, we tested 20 healthy male volunteers to investigate these behavioural and neurophysiological modulations using magnetoencephalography. As an index of the individuals' characteristics, we used the empathy quotient (EQ), the autism spectrum quotient (AQ), and the systemising quotient (SQ). Only during the perception of another person's angry face was a higher SQ a significant predictor of OT-induced prosocial change, both in the behavioural and neurophysiological indicators. In addition, a lower EQ was only a significant predictor of OT-induced prosocial changes in the neurophysiological indicators during the perception of angry faces. Both on the behavioural and the neurophysiological level, the effects of OT were specific for anger and correlated with a higher SQ.
authors.forename: Tetsu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hirosawa
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Haruhiro
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Higashida
authors.forename: Eiichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Okumura
authors.forename: Sanae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Kiyomi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shitamichi
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Munesue
authors.forename: Tsunehisa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsubokawa
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Haruta
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakatani
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hashimoto
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Minabe