Cited by 82Neuroendocrine regulation and behaviorHuman-Animal Interaction StudiesInfant Health and Development

Inhaled oxytocin increases positive social behaviors in newborn macaques

Open access
Simpson, Elizabeth A., Sclafani, Valentina, Paukner, Annika, Hamel, Amanda F., Novak, Melinda A., Meyer, Jerrold S., Suomi, Stephen J., Ferrari, Pier Francesco·2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Significance: Oxytocin promotes positive social behaviors in several species and therefore may be a therapeutic tool for neurodevelopmental disorders. It remains untested, however, whether oxytocin may affect infants, and whether effects may vary depending on infants’ social skills or interest. To test these predictions, we administered nebulized oxytocin to rhesus macaque newborns. Macaques, like humans, engage in complex face-to-face mother–infant interactions. Oxytocin increased infants’ affiliative communicative gestures and decreased salivary cortisol, and higher oxytocin levels were associated with greater social interest. Infants with stronger imitative skills were most positively influenced by oxytocin, suggesting that oxytocin sensitivity may underlie early social motivation. These results suggest that oxytocin may be a promising early intervention for infants at risk for abnormal social functions.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1402471111

Cites

84 of 84 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • IN-OXT treatment increases gaze following, increases socially oriented gaze, and alters social attention in a wide variety of contexts in macaques.

    “This work provides anatomical support for other findings in macaques, which indicate that IN-OXT treatment increases gaze following67, increases socially oriented gaze68, and alters social attention in a wide variety of contexts69–74.”
  • When administered intranasally, OT increases communicative gesturing in rhesus infants.

    “When administered intranasally, OT increases the time that rhesus monkeys spend viewing the eyes of conspecifics in static images (Dal Monte et al., 2014a; Ebitz et al., 2013) and communicative gesturing in rhesus infants (Simpson et al., 2014).”
  • Inhaled oxytocin increases affiliative behaviors such as lip smacking and visual attention and close proximity to the caregiver in newborn macaques.

    “This is in line with recent studies in newborn macaques showing that inhaled oxytocin increases affiliative behaviors such as lip smacking and visual attention and close proximity to the caregiver (Simpson et al. 2014).”

    From A precision medicine approach to oxytocin trials (2017) · cites this paper as Simpson et al. 2014

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Simpson, E. A., Sclafani, V., Paukner, A., Hamel, A. F., Novak, M. A., Meyer, J. S., Suomi, S. J., & Ferrari, P. F.
Affiliations
  • University of Parma (IT)
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2014-04-28
Volume
111
Issue
19
Pages
6922-6927
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2059625922
Cited by
82
References
84
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 5
FWCI
19.78
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lincoln Repository (University of Lincoln) (acceptedVersion)
  • Nottingham Trent University's Institutional Repository (Nottingham Trent Repository) (acceptedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (Z99HD999999, R24OD011180)
  • National Center for Research Resources (#RR11122, R24RR011122)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01HD064653)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Human-Animal Interaction Studies
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Infant Health and Development
Keywords
oxytocin, caregiver-infant interaction, imitation, salivary cortisol, anxiolytic effects, social skills, infant development, neurodevelopmental disorders
MeSH terms
Administration, Inhalation, Animals, Animal Communication, Animals, Newborn, Behavior, Animal, Female, Hydrocortisone, Imitative Behavior, Macaca mulatta, Male, Oxytocics, Oxytocin, Saliva, Social Behavior, Recognition, Psychology, Models, Animal

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review