Administration of intranasal oxytocin can help increase emotion recognition and brain activity during face perception. Oxytocin plays a crucial role in processing social information and maintaining social bonds.

‘Oxytocin nasal spray increased the N170 component of the electroencephalography (EEG) signal in response to infant and adult faces.’

Studies have shown, for example, that intranasal oxytocin administration may increase emotion recognition and brain activity during face perception.




Oxytocin appears to have an important role in processing social information and maintaining social bonds.
Considering that some researchers have even suggested that in the future oxytocin might be used to overcome problems in early parent-infant interaction, there have been surprisingly few studies that test the effects of intranasal oxytocin in mothers of young children.
The new study from the University of Tampere in Finland investigated whether oxytocin nasal spray has an effect on the neural responses to faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants.
Given the role of oxytocin in early caregiving behaviors, the specific goal of the study was to explore whether the effects of oxytocin are more pronounced in response to infant faces.
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The participants were 52 Finnish mothers of 1-year-old infants. During two laboratory visits, the researchers used EEG to measure the mothers' neural responses to infant and adult faces. Before each measurement, the mothers were administered either a placebo or an oxytocin nasal spray.
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The analysis showed that oxytocin increased the so-called N170 component of the EEG signal in response to infant and adult faces.
The N170 component reflects activation of brain areas sensitive to faces, indicating that faces activated these areas more strongly after being administered oxytocin.
The results did not clearly show whether the effects of oxytocin were larger in response to infant faces than to adult faces.
"The main contribution of this study was to expand experimental oxytocin research to the mothers of young children who have rarely been included in this type of studies," says Academy Research Fellow Mikko Peltola from the University of Tampere.
"In the future, it will be important to conduct research with larger samples in order to determine whether oxytocin specifically affects sensitivity to infant signals because that is one of the key aspects of parenting," says Professor Kaija Puura from the University of Tampere and Tampere University Hospital.
Source-Eurekalert