Development of Social Attention and Oxytocin Levels in Maltreated Children

Child maltreatment (CM) is a major risk factor for various psychopathologies but also adversely affects social development. Research on oxytocin (OT) is currently drawing attention as an endocrine basis for social development. In this study, we investigated the relationship between visual attention to social cues and salivary OT levels in children exposed to CM. The results revealed that the CM group had a significantly lower percentage of gaze fixation for the human face eye area and lower salivary OT levels compared to the typical development group. Moreover, a path analysis suggested that gaze fixation for the eye area was a mediator of the relationship between salivary OT levels and social-emotional problems in the CM group. These results suggest that lower endogenous OT levels in maltreated children may lead to atypical development of their visual attention to eyes as a social cue, resulting in social-emotional problems.