| Literature DB >> 19934046 |
Sarina M Rodrigues1, Laura R Saslow, Natalia Garcia, Oliver P John, Dacher Keltner.
Abstract
Oxytocin, a peptide that functions as both a hormone and neurotransmitter, has broad influences on social and emotional processing throughout the body and the brain. In this study, we tested how a polymorphism (rs53576) of the oxytocin receptor relates to two key social processes related to oxytocin: empathy and stress reactivity. Compared with individuals homozygous for the G allele of rs53576 (GG), individuals with one or two copies of the A allele (AG/AA) exhibited lower behavioral and dispositional empathy, as measured by the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test and an other-oriented empathy scale. Furthermore, AA/AG individuals displayed higher physiological and dispositional stress reactivity than GG individuals, as determined by heart rate response during a startle anticipation task and an affective reactivity scale. Our results provide evidence of how a naturally occurring genetic variation of the oxytocin receptor relates to both empathy and stress profiles.Entities:
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Year: 2009 PMID： 19934046 PMCID： PMC2795557 DOI： 10.1073/pnas.0909579106
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ISSN： 0027-8424 Impact factor: 11.205