Oxytocin Enhances Amygdala-Dependent, Socially Reinforced Learning and Emotional Empathy in Humans
Oxytocin Enhances Amygdala-Dependent, Socially Reinforced Learning and Emotional Empathy in Humans
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.5538-09.2010
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发表时间：
2010-04-07
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Kendrick, Keith M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hurlemann, Rene;Patin, Alexandra;Kendrick, Keith M.
催产素（OT）作为一种亲社会神经肽，在治疗社会、认知和情绪障碍方面具有治疗潜力。然而，OT作为人类学习和共情的一般促进者的潜力尚不清楚。目前对健康成年男性志愿者进行的双盲实验首先调查了鼻内OT治疗是否增强了在反馈引导的项目类别关联任务中的学习表现，其中使用了社交（微笑和愤怒的面孔）或非社交（绿色和红色灯）标记，其次调查了它是否增加了多方面同理心测试测量的认知或情感同理心。进一步的实验研究OT敏感的行为成分是否需要正常的功能性杏仁核。在控制组的结果表明，学习成绩提高时，社会而不是非社会强化。鼻内催产素加强这种社会强化优势，大大增加了情感，但不是认知，同理心的积极和消极的效价刺激。有趣的是，在OT治疗后，男性的情感同理心反应提高到与未治疗女性相似的水平。选择性双侧杏仁核损伤的两名患者（先天性Urbach-Wiethe病的单卵双胞胎）在这些学习和共情任务的OT敏感方面都受损，但在非社会强化学习和认知共情方面表现正常。总的来说，这些发现首次证明OT可以促进杏仁核依赖性，社会强化学习和情感同理心。
Oxytocin (OT) is becoming increasingly established as a prosocial neuropeptide in humans with therapeutic potential in treatment of social, cognitive, and mood disorders. However, the potential of OT as a general facilitator of human learning and empathy is unclear. The current double-blind experiments on healthy adult male volunteers investigated first whether treatment with intranasal OT enhanced learning performance on a feedback-guided item-category association task where either social (smiling and angry faces) or nonsocial (green and red lights) reinforcers were used, and second whether it increased either cognitive or emotional empathy measured by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. Further experiments investigated whether OT-sensitive behavioral components required a normal functional amygdala. Results in control groups showed that learning performance was improved when social rather than nonsocial reinforcement was used. Intranasal OT potentiated this social reinforcement advantage and greatly increased emotional, but not cognitive, empathy in response to both positive and negative valence stimuli. Interestingly, after OT treatment, emotional empathy responses in men were raised to levels similar to those found in untreated women. Two patients with selective bilateral damage to the amygdala (monozygotic twins with congenital Urbach-Wiethe disease) were impaired on both OT-sensitive aspects of these learning and empathy tasks, but performed normally on nonsocially reinforced learning and cognitive empathy. Overall these findings provide the first demonstration that OT can facilitate amygdala-dependent, socially reinforced learning and emotional empathy in men.