TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lischke, Alexander
A1  - Herpertz, Sabine C.
A1  - Berger, Christoph
A1  - Domes, Gregor
A1  - Gamer, Matthias
T1  - Divergent effects of oxytocin on (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes in females with and without borderline personality disorder
JF  - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
N2  - Borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients’ hypersensitivity for emotionally relevant stimuli has been suggested be due to abnormal activity and connectivity in (para-)limbic and prefrontal brain regions during stimulus processing. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to modulate activity and functional connectivity in these brain regions, thereby optimizing the processing of emotional and neutral stimuli. To investigate whether oxytocin would be capable of attenuating BPD patients’ hypersensitivity for such stimuli, we recorded brain activity and gaze behavior during the processing of complex scenes in 51 females with and 48 without BPD after intranasal application of either oxytocin or placebo. We found divergent effects of oxytocin on BPD and healthy control (HC) participants’ (para-)limbic reactivity to emotional and neutral scenes: Oxytocin decreased amygdala and insula reactivity in BPD participants but increased it in HC participants, indicating an oxytocin-induced normalization of amygdala and insula activity during scene processing. In addition, oxytocin normalized the abnormal coupling between amygdala activity and gaze behavior across all scenes in BPD participants. Overall, these findings suggest that oxytocin may be capable of attenuating BPD patients’ hypersensitivity for complex scenes, irrespective of their valence.
KW  - psychology
KW  - oxytocin
KW  - amygdala
KW  - insula
KW  - borderline personality disorder
KW  - functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW  - eye tracking
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173309
VL  - 12
IS  - 11
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Holtfrerich, Sarah K. C.
A1  - Schwarz, Katharina A.
A1  - Sprenger, Christian
A1  - Reimers, Luise
A1  - Diekhof, Esther K.
T1  - Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces
JF  - PLoS ONE
N2  - Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking.
KW  - maternal behavior
KW  - oxytocin
KW  - testosterone
KW  - attention
KW  - infant faces
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-166783
VL  - 11
IS  - 11
ER  -