Peripheral Oxytocin Predicts Higher-Level Social Cognition in Men Regardless of Empathy Quotient

This study investigates whether healthy individuals with very high or very low levels of empathy differ in endogenous OT and whether OT plasma levels can predict performance in a mentalizing task.
Methods 40 healthy men were included based upon their score above the 85th or below the 15th percentile of the empathy quotient inventory 1. Participants’ abilities to interpret social information was assessed via the Social Detection Task 2. Plasma OT levels were analyzed using enzyme immunoassay.
Results OT plasma levels predicted mentalizing performance for more ambiguous social scenes (i. e., difficult items) for all participants. We found no group differences in OT plasma levels between subjects with high and low empathy.
Discussion These findings confirm a link between peripheral OT and the ability to read subtle nonverbal social cues in healthy individuals, which is independent of self-reported empathy. [...] © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New YorkArticle in Thieme eJournals: Table of contents  |  Abstract  |  Full text

Source: Pharmacopsychiatry - March 28, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Deuse, Lisa Wudarczyk, Olga Rademacher, Lena Kaleta, Peter Karges, Wolfram Kacheva, Stella Gr ünder, Gerhard Lammertz, Sarah E. Tags: Original Paper Source Type: research