title: Intranasal oxytocin selectively attenuates rhesus monkeys' attention to negative facial expressions.
abstract: Intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) modulates social perception and cognition in humans and could be an effective pharmacotherapy for treating social impairments associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, like autism. However, it is unknown how IN-OT modulates social cognition, its effect after repeated use, or its impact on the developing brain. Animal models are urgently needed. This study examined the effect of IN-OT on social perception in monkeys using tasks that reveal some of the social impairments seen in autism. Six rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta, 4 males) received a 48 IU dose of OT or saline placebo using a pediatric nebulizer. An hour later, they performed a computerized task (the dot-probe task) to measure their attentional bias to social, emotional, and nonsocial images. Results showed that IN-OT significantly reduced monkeys' attention to negative facial expressions, but not neutral faces or clip art images and, additionally, showed a trend to enhance monkeys' attention to direct vs. averted gaze faces. This study is the first to demonstrate an effect of IN-OT on social perception in monkeys, IN-OT selectively reduced monkey's attention to negative facial expressions, but not neutral social or nonsocial images. These findings complement several reports in humans showing that IN-OT reduces the aversive quality of social images suggesting that, like humans, monkey social perception is mediated by the oxytocinergic system. Importantly, these results in monkeys suggest that IN-OT does not dampen the emotional salience of social stimuli, but rather acts to affect the evaluation of emotional images during the early stages of information processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States; Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA, United States; Center for Translational Social Neuroscience, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States. Electronic address: lparr@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Parr
authors.forename: Meera
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Modi
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Siebert
authors.forename: Larry J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Young
mesh_terms: D000281:Administration, Intranasal / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000662:veterinary; D000336:Aerosols; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects*; D004644:Emotions / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D004867:Equipment Design; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D009330:Nebulizers and Vaporizers; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D012938:Social Perception; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D000336:Aerosols; D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: Attention; Autism; Facial expression; Gaze; Oxytocin; Social cognition