Effects of Oxytocin on Socio-Cognitive Processes: New Insights from Spatio-Temporal EEG Analyses
Final Report Abstract
Across two subprojects and four studies, we could reveal new evidence on how oxytocin affects the temporal dynamics of neural processing. Subproject 1 demonstrated that changes in the temporal dynamics of resting networks underlie the anxiolytic effects of oxytocin. Specifically, oxytocin reduces rapid switching among neural networks during the resting state. Furthermore, it seems to lower the brain’s internally-oriented processing of autonomic information in order to enable the externally-oriented processing of social information. Such evidence could potentially inform innovative psychobiological treatment strategies in the context of disorders involving social anxiety. Subproject 2a showed that oxytocin modulates behavior in inter-group conflict via a specific alteration of valuation-related brain dynamics. Specifically, oxytocin eliminated negative social behavior towards rival out-group members via enabling more positive, i.e. empathic valuations of out-group gains. By demonstrating that oxytocin modulates social behavior via increasing empathic responding, our findings could be of relevance for the treatment of patients suffering from empathy deficits (e.g. borderline personality disorder). Finally, study 1 of subproject 2b demonstrated that a partner’s high facial attractiveness might compensate for high facial threat in male but not female participants. In other words, women payed relatively more attention to threat cues inversely signaling parental investment than to attractiveness cues signaling reproductive fitness. We attribute this difference to an evolutionary, biologically sex-specific decision regarding parental investment and reproduction behavior. The findings from study 2 point to an interesting sex difference in the effects of oxytocin on trust behavior, which psychobiological treatment strategies using oxytocin administration have to consider.
Publications
- (2019). Oxytocin modulates the temporal stability of resting EEG networks. Scientific Reports, 9, 13418
Schiller, B., Koenig, T., & Heinrichs, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49636-6) - (2019). The neuroendocrinological basis of human affiliation: how oxytocin coordinates affiliation-related cognition and behavior via changing underlying brain activity. In Schultheiss & Mehta (Eds.), International Handbook of Social Neuroendocrinology. 193-204, New York: Routledge
Schiller, B. & Heinrichs, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315200439-12) - (2020). Oxytocin changes behavior and spatio-temporal brain dynamics underlying inter-group conflict in humans. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 31, 119-130
Schiller, B., Domes, G., & Heinrichs, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2019.12.109) - (2021). Facial threat affects trust more strongly than facial attractiveness in women than it does in men. Scientific Reports, 11, 22475
Brustkern, J., Heinrichs, M., Walker, M., & Schiller, B.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01775-5)
