Adult attachment style moderates the effect of oxytocin on neural responses to infant emotional faces

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin.

The present study aims to examine whether the effects of IN-OT on maternal-related neural responses to infant faces were moderated by participants' attachment style.

Why It Was Studied

Oxytocin (OT) is known for its positive influence on maternal motivation and behavior, however, the effects of intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) on neural activity during the perception of infant stimuli are often inconsistent.

These discrepancies further reveal the need to take into account individual differences in IN-OT research.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants and adults, women only.

The neural responses of participants were assessed during a facial recognition task with joy, neutral, and crying infant faces.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Oxytocin, giving a reference point.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Emotions, Facial Recognition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Oxytocin.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Attachment styles, Infant emotional faces, Maternal empathy and fMRI.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin.

The publication is from 2022 (International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.