Oxytocin modulates fMRI responses to facial expression in macaques

Increasing evidence has shown that oxytocin (OT), a mammalian hormone, modifies the way social stimuli are perceived and the way they affect behavior. Thus, OT may serve as a treatment for psychiatric disorders, many of which are characterized by dysfunctional social behavior. To explore the neural mechanisms mediating the effects of OT in macaque monkeys, we investigated whether OT would modulate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses in face-responsive regions (faces vs. blank screen) evoked by the perception of various facial expressions (neutral, fearful, aggressive, and appeasing). In the placebo condition, we found significantly increased activation for emotional (mainly fearful and appeasing) faces compared with neutral faces across the face-responsive regions. OT selectively, and differentially, altered fMRI responses to emotional expressions, significantly reducing responses to both fearful and aggressive faces in face-responsive regions while leaving responses to appeasing as well as neutral faces unchanged. We also found that OT administration selectively reduced functional coupling between the amygdala and areas in the occipital and inferior temporal cortex during the viewing of fearful and aggressive faces, but not during the viewing of neutral or appeasing faces. Taken together, our results indicate homologies between monkeys and humans in the neural circuits mediating the effects of OT. Thus, the monkey may be an ideal animal model to explore the development of OT-based pharmacological strategies for treating patients with dysfunctional social behavior.