Oxytocin weakens self-other distinction in males during empathic responses to sadness: an event-related potentials study

By making use of event-related potential (ERP) technology, a randomized, double-blind, between-subject design study was performed in order to investigate whether OXT can weaken men’s self-other distinction during empathic responses to sad expressions. In the two experimental tasks, 39 male subjects...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2020-11, Vol.8, p.e10384-e10384, Article e10384
Main Authors: Yue, Tong, Xu, Ying, Xue, Liming, Huang, Xiting
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blindness
Cognitive ability
Emotions
Empathy
Event-related potentials
Experiments
Gender differences
Global Health
Hypotheses
Males
Men
Neuropeptides
Neuroscience
Oxytocin
Pharmacy
Physiological aspects
Psychiatry and Psychology
Psychological aspects
Psychological research
Psychophysiology
Self-other differentiation (Developmental psychology)
Self-other distinction
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Summary:By making use of event-related potential (ERP) technology, a randomized, double-blind, between-subject design study was performed in order to investigate whether OXT can weaken men’s self-other distinction during empathic responses to sad expressions. In the two experimental tasks, 39 male subjects were asked to either evaluate the emotional state shown in a facial stimulus (other-task) or to evaluate their own emotional responses (self-task). The results revealed that OXT reduced the differences in P2 (150–200 ms) amplitudes between sad and neutral expressions in the self-task but enhanced P2 to sad expressions in the other-task, indicating OXT’s role in integrating the self with others instead of separating them. In addition, OXT also reduced the LPC (400–600 ms) amplitudes between sad-neutral expressions in the self-task, implying that OXT’s weakening effects on the self-other distinction could occur at both the early and late cognitive control stages of the empathic response.
ISSN:2167-8359
2167-8359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.10384