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Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts

One of the most robust effects of intranasal oxytocin treatment is its enhancement of emotional empathy responses across cultures to individuals displaying emotions in realistic contexts in the Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET). However, it is not established if this effect of oxytocin on emotional em...

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Autores principales: Le, Jiao, Kou, Juan, Zhao, Weihua, Fu, Meina, Zhang, Yingying, Becker, Benjamin, Kendrick, Keith M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7432151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32848571
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00803
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author Le, Jiao
Kou, Juan
Zhao, Weihua
Fu, Meina
Zhang, Yingying
Becker, Benjamin
Kendrick, Keith M.
author_facet Le, Jiao
Kou, Juan
Zhao, Weihua
Fu, Meina
Zhang, Yingying
Becker, Benjamin
Kendrick, Keith M.
author_sort Le, Jiao
collection PubMed
description One of the most robust effects of intranasal oxytocin treatment is its enhancement of emotional empathy responses across cultures to individuals displaying emotions in realistic contexts in the Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET). However, it is not established if this effect of oxytocin on emotional empathy is due to altered visual attention toward different components of the stimulus pictures or an enhanced empathic response. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy male individuals, we both attempted a further replication of emotional empathy enhancement by intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) and used eye-tracking measures to determine if this was associated by altered visual attention toward different components of the picture stimuli (background context, human face, and body posture). Results replicated previous findings of enhanced emotional empathy in response to both negative and positive stimuli and that this was associated with an increased proportion of time viewing the faces of humans in the pictures and a corresponding decrease in that toward the rest of the body and/or background context. Overall, our findings suggest that enhanced emotional empathy following oxytocin administration is due to increased attention to the faces of others displaying emotions and away from other contextual and social cues. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov Oxytocin Modulates Eye Gaze Behavior During Social Processing; registration ID: NCT03293511; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03293511.
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spelling pubmed-74321512020-08-25 Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts Le, Jiao Kou, Juan Zhao, Weihua Fu, Meina Zhang, Yingying Becker, Benjamin Kendrick, Keith M. Front Neurosci Neuroscience One of the most robust effects of intranasal oxytocin treatment is its enhancement of emotional empathy responses across cultures to individuals displaying emotions in realistic contexts in the Multifaceted Empathy Task (MET). However, it is not established if this effect of oxytocin on emotional empathy is due to altered visual attention toward different components of the stimulus pictures or an enhanced empathic response. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy male individuals, we both attempted a further replication of emotional empathy enhancement by intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) and used eye-tracking measures to determine if this was associated by altered visual attention toward different components of the picture stimuli (background context, human face, and body posture). Results replicated previous findings of enhanced emotional empathy in response to both negative and positive stimuli and that this was associated with an increased proportion of time viewing the faces of humans in the pictures and a corresponding decrease in that toward the rest of the body and/or background context. Overall, our findings suggest that enhanced emotional empathy following oxytocin administration is due to increased attention to the faces of others displaying emotions and away from other contextual and social cues. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov Oxytocin Modulates Eye Gaze Behavior During Social Processing; registration ID: NCT03293511; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03293511. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-08-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7432151/ /pubmed/32848571 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00803 Text en Copyright © 2020 Le, Kou, Zhao, Fu, Zhang, Becker and Kendrick. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Le, Jiao
Kou, Juan
Zhao, Weihua
Fu, Meina
Zhang, Yingying
Becker, Benjamin
Kendrick, Keith M.
Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title_full Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title_fullStr Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title_full_unstemmed Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title_short Oxytocin Facilitation of Emotional Empathy Is Associated With Increased Eye Gaze Toward the Faces of Individuals in Emotional Contexts
title_sort oxytocin facilitation of emotional empathy is associated with increased eye gaze toward the faces of individuals in emotional contexts
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7432151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32848571
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00803
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