Neuropsychologia 48 (2010) 179–184 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuropsychologia journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neuropsychologia The effect of intranasal administration of oxytocin on fear recognition M. Fischer-Shofty a , S.G. Shamay-Tsoory a,∗ , H. Harari b , Y. Levkovitz b a Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel b Shalvata Mental Health Care Center, Hod Hasharon, Israel article info Article history: Received 22 February 2009 Received in revised form 15 August 2009 Accepted 3 September 2009 Available online 10 September 2009 Keywords: Oxytocin Facial expression Emotion Fear abstract The oxytocinergic system has recently been placed amongst the most promising targets for various psy- chiatric treatments due to its role in prosocial behavior and anxiety reduction. Although recent studies have demonstrated a general effect of administration of oxytocin on emotion recognition, no study to date has examine the effect of oxytocin on each emotion separately. In the present study, a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover design was used in a dynamic facial expression task, in order to assess the effects of administration of oxytocin on emotion recognition. A single dose of oxytocin or a placebo was administered intranasally to 27 healthy male subjects 45 min prior to task performance. The results showed that a single intranasal administration of oxytocin, as opposed to the placebo, improved the sub- jects’ ability to recognize fear, but not other emotions. These results suggest a specific role for oxytocin in fear recognition, which could be relevant for clinical disorders that manifest deficits in processing emotional facial expressions, particularly fear. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The ability to perceive and understand the mental state of others constitutes the foundation of interpersonal communication, which relies on important verbal, as well as non-verbal, information. One important means for conveying non-verbal information is through facial expressions, which reflect the dynamically changing emo- tional state of others in response to their internal and external experiences. Therefore, an accurate recognition of emotional facial expressions is necessary for adaptive social functioning in inter- personal situations (Carr & Lutjemeier, 2005; Karow & Connors, 2003). Given that peptide hormones such as oxytocin have been impli- cated in the regulation of mammalian social behavior in general and emotion recognition in particular (Domes et al., 2007a; Guastella, Carson, Dadds, Mitchell, & Cox, 2009; Guastella, Mitchell, & Dadds, 2008), it could be reasoned that oxytocin would have a modulating effect on our ability to accurately recognize emotions from facial expressions. Oxytocin is a nonapeptide, which in addition to its known peripheral hormonal function in uterine contractions and lactat- ing in nursing females (Insel, Young, & Wang, 1997), it also serves as a neuromodulator in the central nervous system. Oxytocin has an anxiolytic effect and plays a role in various complex prosocial behaviors, such as maternal behavior and trust (Bartz & Hollander, ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +972 4 8288778; fax: +972 4 8240966. E-mail address: sshamay@psy.haifa.ac.il (S.G. Shamay-Tsoory). 2006; Insel & Fernald, 2004; Kosfeld, Heinrichs, Zak, Fischbacher, & Fehr, 2005; Windle, Shanks, Lightman, & Ingram, 1997), as well as mediating the beneficial effect of social support in stressful social situations (Heinrichs, Baumgartner, Kirschbaum, & Ehlert, 2003). A recent study, conducted by Guastella et al. (2008), examined the role of the hormone oxytocin on sensitivity to eye gaze. They administered a single dose of oxytocin intranasally to the subjects, who were then monitored via an eye-tracker while viewing neu- tral black-and-white facial expressions. The authors reported that the subjects who received oxytocin spent more time gazing at the eye region of the faces and returned more frequently to this area, as compared to the subjects who received a placebo. Although the study was conducted on neutral expressions, the authors suggested that oxytocin has a direct influence on the ability to perceive and understand the emotional state of others, which contributes pro- foundly to interpersonal communication. In accordance with this study, Domes et al. (2007a) have reported that a single dose of oxy- tocin, administered intranasally, had a general effect on enhancing subjects’ ability to recognize emotions. While these studies demonstrate the general effect of oxytocin administration on emotion recognition, as far as we know no study to date have examined the selective effect of oxytocin on the recog- nition of separate basic emotions. An abundance of studies argue in favor of a particular high sur- vival value for fear, and its rapid detection (Green & Phillips, 2004; Liddell et al., 2005; Reinders et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2007; Williams et al., 2006). In an ERP study, Williams et al. (2006) found evidence to support the hypothesis that signals of fear (e.g. fearful facial expression) are favored in neural processing, so that other 0028-3932/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.09.003