ArticlePsychopharmacology2017
Acute oxytocin improves memory and gaze following in male but not female nursery-reared infant macaques.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch.Human brain mapping · 2017Trial
- How Do Common Marmosets Maintain the Balance Between Response Execution and Action Inhibition?American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Intranasal oxytocin enhances the perception of ambiguous averted gaze in women but not in men.Psychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Oxytocin Receptor Signaling in Vascular Function and Stroke.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Review
- Bridging the species gap in translational research for neurodevelopmental disorders.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2019Article
- Social touch alters newborn monkey behavior.Infant behavior & development · 2019Article
- Oxytocin and Oxytocinase in the Obese and Nonobese Parturients during Induction and Augmentation of Labor.AJP reports · 2019Article
- Handling newborn monkeys alters later exploratory, cognitive, and social behaviors.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2019Article
- Sexual dimorphism of oxytocin and vasopressin in social cognition and behavior.Psychology research and behavior management · 2019Review
- Opportunities and challenges for intranasal oxytocin treatment studies in nonhuman primates.American journal of primatology · 2018Article
- Bridging the gap between rodents and humans: The role of non-human primates in oxytocin research.American journal of primatology · 2018Review
- Sex Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Review.Current psychiatry reports · 2018Review
- Neonatal Oxytocin Treatment Ameliorates Autistic-Like Behaviors and Oxytocin Deficiency in Valproic Acid-Induced Rat Model of Autism.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2018Article
- Advances in nonhuman primate models of autism: Integrating neuroscience and behavior.Experimental neurology · 2018Review
- Molecular Mechanisms of Oxytocin Signaling at the Synaptic Connection.Neural plasticity · 2018Review
- Preference for novel faces in male infant monkeys predicts cerebrospinal fluid oxytocin concentrations later in life.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Tolerant Barbary macaques maintain juvenile levels of social attention in old age, but despotic rhesus macaques do not.Animal behaviour · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleExogenous oxytocin administration is widely reported to improve social cognition in human and nonhuman primate adults. Risk factors of impaired social cognition, however, emerge in infancy. Early interventions-when plasticity is greatest-are critical to reverse negative outcomes.
objectiveWe tested the hypothesis that oxytocin may exert similar positive effects on infant social cognition, as in adults. To test this idea, we assessed the effectiveness of acute, aerosolized oxytocin on two foundational social cognitive skills: working memory (i.e., ability to briefly hold and process information) and social gaze (i.e., tracking the direction of others' gaze) in 1-month-old nursery-reared macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta). We did not predict sex differences, but we included sex as a factor in our analyses to test whether our effects would be generalizable across both males and females.
resultsIn a double-blind, placebo-controlled design, we found that females were more socially skilled at baseline compared to males, and that oxytocin improved working memory and gaze following, but only in males.
conclusionsThese sex differences, while unexpected, may be due to interactions with gonadal steroids and may be relevant to sexually dimorphic disorders of social cognition, such as male-biased autism spectrum disorder, for which oxytocin has been proposed as a potential treatment. In sum, we report the first evidence that oxytocin may influence primate infant cognitive abilities. Moreover, these behavioral effects appear sexually dimorphic, highlighting the importance of considering sex differences. Oxytocin effects observed in one sex may not be generalizable to the other sex.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.