Oxytocin modulates fMRI responses to facial expression in macaques

摘要: Increasing evidence has shown that oxytocin (OT), a mammalian hormone, modifies the way social stimuli are perceived and they affect behavior. Thus, OT may serve as treatment for psychiatric disorders, many of which characterized by dysfunctional To explore neural mechanisms mediating effects in macaque monkeys, we investigated whether would modulate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses face-responsive regions (faces vs. blank screen) evoked perception various facial expressions (neutral, fearful, aggressive, appeasing). In placebo condition, found significantly increased activation emotional (mainly fearful appeasing) faces compared with neutral across regions. selectively, differentially, altered fMRI to expressions, reducing both aggressive while leaving appeasing well unchanged. We also administration selectively reduced coupling between amygdala areas occipital inferior temporal cortex during viewing faces, but not or faces. Taken together, our results indicate homologies monkeys humans circuits OT. monkey be an ideal animal model development OT-based pharmacological strategies treating patients