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Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention

Aberrant attentional biases to social stimuli have been implicated in a number of disorders including autism and social anxiety disorder. Oxytocin, a naturally-occurring mammalian hormone and neuromodulator involved in regulating social behavior, has been proposed to impact basic biological systems...

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Autores principales: Puglia, Meghan H., Connelly, Jessica J., Morris, James P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29907738
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-018-0159-x
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author Puglia, Meghan H.
Connelly, Jessica J.
Morris, James P.
author_facet Puglia, Meghan H.
Connelly, Jessica J.
Morris, James P.
author_sort Puglia, Meghan H.
collection PubMed
description Aberrant attentional biases to social stimuli have been implicated in a number of disorders including autism and social anxiety disorder. Oxytocin, a naturally-occurring mammalian hormone and neuromodulator involved in regulating social behavior, has been proposed to impact basic biological systems that facilitate the detection of and orientation to social information. Here, we investigate a role for naturally-occurring variability in the endogenous oxytocinergic system in regulating neural response during attention to social information. Participants performed a selective social attention task while undergoing fMRI, provided a blood sample for epigenetic analysis, and completed self-report measures of social functioning. We find that a functional epigenetic modification to the oxytocin receptor, OXTR methylation, is associated with increased neural response within and decreased functional coupling between regions of the salience and attentional control networks during selective social attention. We also show that subclinical variability in autistic and social anxiety traits moderates this epigenetic regulation of neural response. These data offer a mechanistic explanation to a growing literature associating social behavior and disorder with epigenetic modification to OXTR by suggesting that OXTR methylation reflects a decrease in the extent to which social information automatically captures attention. We highlight the importance that treatment efficacy be considered in relation to individual differences in molecular makeup, and that future studies aimed at uncovering biomarkers of disorder carefully consider measurement at both the biological and phenotypic level.
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spelling pubmed-60039102018-06-18 Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention Puglia, Meghan H. Connelly, Jessica J. Morris, James P. Transl Psychiatry Article Aberrant attentional biases to social stimuli have been implicated in a number of disorders including autism and social anxiety disorder. Oxytocin, a naturally-occurring mammalian hormone and neuromodulator involved in regulating social behavior, has been proposed to impact basic biological systems that facilitate the detection of and orientation to social information. Here, we investigate a role for naturally-occurring variability in the endogenous oxytocinergic system in regulating neural response during attention to social information. Participants performed a selective social attention task while undergoing fMRI, provided a blood sample for epigenetic analysis, and completed self-report measures of social functioning. We find that a functional epigenetic modification to the oxytocin receptor, OXTR methylation, is associated with increased neural response within and decreased functional coupling between regions of the salience and attentional control networks during selective social attention. We also show that subclinical variability in autistic and social anxiety traits moderates this epigenetic regulation of neural response. These data offer a mechanistic explanation to a growing literature associating social behavior and disorder with epigenetic modification to OXTR by suggesting that OXTR methylation reflects a decrease in the extent to which social information automatically captures attention. We highlight the importance that treatment efficacy be considered in relation to individual differences in molecular makeup, and that future studies aimed at uncovering biomarkers of disorder carefully consider measurement at both the biological and phenotypic level. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6003910/ /pubmed/29907738 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-018-0159-x Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Puglia, Meghan H.
Connelly, Jessica J.
Morris, James P.
Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title_full Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title_fullStr Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title_full_unstemmed Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title_short Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
title_sort epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29907738
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-018-0159-x
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