Effects of oxytocin on attention to emotional faces in healthy volunteers and highly socially anxious males
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that individuals with social anxiety demonstrate vigilance to social threat, whilst the peptide hormone oxytocin is widely accepted as supporting affiliative behaviour in humans. METHODS: This study investigated whether oxytocin can affect attentional bias in social anxiety. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, within-group study design, 26 healthy and 16 highly socially anxious (HSA) male volunteers (within the HSA group, 10 were diagnosed with generalized social anxiety disorder) were administered 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo to investigate attentional processing in social anxiety. Attentional bias was assessed using the dot-probe paradigm with angry, fearful, happy and neutral face stimuli. RESULTS: In the baseline placebo condition, the HSA group showed greater attentional bias for emotional faces than healthy individuals. Oxytocin reduced the difference between HSA and non-socially anxious individuals in attentional bias for emotional faces. Moreover, it appeared to normalize attentional bias in HSA individuals to levels seen in the healthy population in the baseline condition. The biological mechanisms by which oxytocin may be exerting these effects are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: These results, coupled with previous research, could indicate a potential therapeutic use of this hormone in treatment for social anxiety.
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Intranasal oxytocin has been found to increase attention and approach towards negative social-emotional stimuli, such as angry and fearful facial expressions.
“Additionally, intranasal oxytocin has also been found to increase attention and approach towards negative social-emotional stimuli, such as angry and fearful facial expressions (Clark-Elford et al., 2015;Simon et al., 2012;Tollenaar et al., 2013).”
From Meta-analysis of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on interpretation and expression of emotions (2017) · cites this paper as Clark-Elford et al., 2015
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- Authors
- Clark-Elford, R., Nathan, P. J., Auyeung, B., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., Sule, A., Müller, U., Dudas, R. B., Sahakian, B. J., & Baron-Cohen, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Clark-Elford, Rebecca
- Venue
- International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2014-12-30
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 1461-1457 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-5111
- PMC
- PMC4368883
- OpenAlex
- W2189603612
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 11.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- GlaxoSmithKline
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (CL-2007-14-005)
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- oxytocin, social anxiety, attentional bias, emotional facial expressions, dot-probe task, generalized social anxiety disorder, affiliative behavior
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Anxiety Disorders, Attention, Double-Blind Method, Emotions, Face, Facial Expression, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Oxytocin, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Psychotropic Drugs, Reaction Time, Social Behavior, Young Adult
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