Effects of Oxytocin on Socio-Cognitive Processes: New Insights from Spatio-Temporal EEG Analyses

神经肽催产素是人类社会行为和社会认知的关键调节器。鉴于过多的鼻腔应用研究加强了催产素在社会互动中的作用，我们对催产素对特定神经过程的影响知之甚少。基于十多年来对人类催产素的研究，我们提炼出四种不同的催产素假说：焦虑降低假说、社会动机假说、社会突显假说和互动论假说。神经成像方法使我们能够经验性地检验这些假说。在空间领域，代谢神经成像研究已经产生了关于催产素在社会互动过程中诱导的神经活动变化的重要见解。相比之下，在时间领域，催产素的应用如何影响社会认知神经过程的动力学在很大程度上仍然是未知的。因此，在本项目中，我们打算重点研究脑电生理活动的各种时空分析，以研究催产素如何影响人类社会认知和行为的时间动力学。本项目的目标是探索催产素对与信任决策相关的社会认知过程的时间动力学(子项目1)和休息神经网络(子项目2)的影响。在通过鼻腔注射安慰剂或催产素后，参与者将在一个创新的信任游戏中互动，互动伙伴由计算机生成的面部照片代表。我们将保持对这些面孔的两个属性(威胁和吸引力)的实验控制，以将不同的催产素假设进行实证测试。利用事件相关电位的创新时空分析，我们的目标是识别和计时信任决策过程中的整个神经过程序列。这一分析方法将使我们能够回答以下研究问题：催产素如何影响社会认知过程的强度(加强与抑制)？催产素如何影响社会认知过程的持续时间(加速而不是延长)？催产素如何影响社会认知过程的类型(消除与增加)？此外，利用静息脑电的时空分析，我们将分析催产素如何影响与特定功能相关的神经静息网络的出现。对于所有这些研究问题，我们将从不同的催产素假说中得出具体的预测。我们希望通过经验性地检验这些预测来阐明这些假设在催产素对社会认知行为中的神经处理的影响方面的有效性。我们相信，这个项目的结果会引起众多研究人员的兴趣，包括情绪处理、社会互动和认知以及心理神经内分泌学领域的研究人员。

The neuropeptide oxytocin is a key modulator of social behavior and social cognition in humans. Given the plethora of intranasal application studies enforcing its role in social interactions, we know little about the effects of oxytocin on specific neural processes. Relying on over a decade of oxytocin research in humans, we have distilled four distinct oxytocin hypotheses: the Anxiety Reduction Hypothesis, Social Motivation Hypothesis, Social Salience Hypothesis, and Interactionist Hypothesis. Neuroimaging methods enable us to empirically test these hypotheses. In the spatial domain, metabolic neuroimaging studies have generated important insights about oxytocin-induced changes in neural activity during social interactions. In contrast, in the temporal domain, it is still largely unknown how oxytocin administration affects the dynamics of socio-cognitive neural processes. Therefore, in the current project, we intend to focus on various spatio-temporal analyses of electrophysiological brain activity in order to study how oxytocin affects the temporal dynamics of human social cognition and behavior.The goals of this project are to explore the effects of oxytocin on the temporal dynamics of the socio-cognitive processes associated with trust decisions (Subproject 1) and on resting neural networks (Subproject 2). After having received placebo or oxytocin via intranasal administration, participants will interact in an innovative trust game in which interaction partners are represented by computer-generated face photos. We will maintain experimental control over two attributes of these faces (threat, attractiveness) to put the distinct oxytocin hypotheses to an empirical test. Utilizing an innovative spatio-temporal analysis of event-related potentials, we aim to identify and time the entire sequence of neural processes during trust decisions. This analytic approach alone will enable us to answer the following research questions: How does oxytocin affect the intensity of socio-cognitive processes (intensify versus dampen)? How does oxytocin affect the duration of socio-cognitive processes (accelerate versus prolong)? How does oxytocin affect the type of socio-cognitive processes (eliminate versus add)? Furthermore, utilizing a spatio-temporal analysis of resting electroencephalography, we will analyze how oxytocin affects the occurrence of the neural resting networks associated with specific functions. Regarding all these research questions, we will derive specific predictions from the distinct oxytocin hypotheses. We hope to shed light on the validity of these hypotheses with respect to the effects of oxytocin on neural processing in social-cognitive behavior by empirically testing these predictions. We are confident that this project`s results are of interest to a wide variety of researchers including those in the areas of emotion processing, social interaction and cognition, and psychoneuroendocrinology.