To mirror or not to mirror upon mutual gaze, oxytocin can pave the way: A cross-over randomized placebo-controlled trial

Psychoneuroendocrinology
Jellina PrinsenKaat Alaerts

Abstract

The eyes constitute a highly salient cue to communicate social intent. Previous research showed that direct eye contact between two individuals can readily evoke an increased propensity to 'mirror' other peoples' actions. Considering the implicated role of the prosocial neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) in enhancing the saliency of social cues and modulating approach/avoidance motivational tendencies, the current study adopted the non-invasive brain stimulation technique transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to explore whether a single dose of intranasal OXT (24 IU) modulated (enhanced) a person's propensity to show heightened mirroring or motor resonance upon salient social cues, such as eye contact. The study involved a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial with twenty-seven healthy adult men (19-32 y). By applying single-pulse TMS over the primary motor cortex during movement observation, it was shown that motor resonance was significantly higher when movement observation was accompanied by direct, compared to averted gaze, but that a single dose of OXT did not uniformly enhance this effect. Significant moderations of the treatment effect were noted however, indicating that participants with high self-reports of att...Continue Reading

Associated Clinical Trials

Citations

Sep 12, 2019·Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience·Jellina Prinsen, Kaat Alaerts
Apr 9, 2021·Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience·Fabrizia FestantePier Francesco Ferrari

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