Oxytocin Attenuates Neural Reactivity to Masked Threat Cues from the Eyes
Oxytocin Attenuates Neural Reactivity to Masked Threat Cues from the Eyes
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DOI：
10.1038/npp.2014.183
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发表时间：
2015-01-01
影响因子：
7.6
通讯作者：
Domes, Gregor
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kanat, Manuela;Heinrichs, Markus;Domes, Gregor
神经肽催产素最近被证明可以调节对情绪面部暗示的隐蔽注意力转移，并提高对掩饰面部情绪的辨别能力。这些结果表明，催产素在情绪表达完全评估之前的早期感知阶段就调节了面部情绪的处理。在这里，我们使用功能磁共振成像来检查催产素是否改变了对背面遮盖的愤怒和快乐面孔的神经反应，同时控制了对眼睛和嘴巴区域的注意力。当注意到突出的面部特征，即愤怒的脸的眼睛和快乐的脸的嘴时，鼻腔内注射催产素降低了杏仁核对掩饰情绪的反应。此外，催产素减少了梭形回和脑干区的神经反应，以及杏仁核和梭形回之间的功能耦合，特别是针对来自眼睛的威胁线索。催产素对大脑活动的影响与行为表现的差异无关，因为催产素对情绪检测没有影响。我们的结果表明，催产素通过眼睛区域的威胁信号减弱了早期唤醒的神经关联。由于威胁敏感度的降低可能会增加参与社交互动的可能性，我们的发现可能对社交焦虑的临床状态有重要影响。
The neuropeptide oxytocin has recently been shown to modulate covert attention shifts to emotional face cues and to improve discrimination of masked facial emotions. These results suggest that oxytocin modulates facial emotion processing at early perceptual stages prior to full evaluation of the emotional expression. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine whether oxytocin alters neural responses to backwardly masked angry and happy faces while controlling for attention to the eye vs the mouth region. Intranasal oxytocin administration reduced amygdala reactivity to masked emotions when attending to salient facial features, ie, the eyes of angry faces and the mouth of happy faces. In addition, oxytocin decreased neural responses within the fusiform gyrus and brain stem areas, as well as functional coupling between the amygdala and the fusiform gyrus specifically for threat cues from the eyes. Effects of oxytocin on brain activity were not attributable to differences in behavioral performance, as oxytocin had no impact on mere emotion detection. Our results suggest that oxytocin attenuates neural correlates of early arousal by threat signals from the eye region. As reduced threat sensitivity may increase the likelihood of engaging in social interactions, our findings may have important implications for clinical states of social anxiety.