ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2018
DNA methylation of OXTR is associated with parasympathetic nervous system activity and amygdala morphology.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Temporal profile of intranasal oxytocin in the human autonomic nervous system at rest: An electrocardiography and pupillometry study.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Trial
- An epigenetic framework for understanding contextual influences on neural and socio-emotional development: Narrative review and case-study of the oxytocin receptor.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Review
- The Convergence of Early-Life Stress and Autism Spectrum Disorder on the Epigenetics of Genes Key to the HPA Axis.Biology · 2025Review
- Resilience by design: How nature, nurture, environment, and microbiome mitigate stress and allostatic load.World journal of psychiatry · 2023Review
- Community and domestic violence are associated with DNA methylation GrimAge acceleration and heart rate variability in adolescents.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Article
- Evaluating Methylation of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene and the Oxytocin Intergenic Region.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- An epigenetic rheostat of experience: DNA methylation ofComprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Review
- Is Oxytocin "Nature's Medicine"?Pharmacological reviews · 2020Review
- The interaction between OXTR rs2268493 and perceived maternal care is associated with amygdala-dorsolateral prefrontal effective connectivity during explicit emotion processing.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2020Article
- A novel role of oxytocin: Oxytocin-induced well-being in humans.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Oxytocin has anxiolytic properties whose mechanisms of action are still being identified. DNA methylation in the promoter region of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR), an epigenetic modification that putatively reflects a downtuning of the oxytocin system, has previously been implicated in the regulation of fear-related responses through the amygdala. In this study, we attempted to characterize the relationship between methylation of OXTR and anxiogenesis using two distinct endophenotypes: autonomic nervous system activity and subcortical brain structure. In 79 participants, we found that increased OXTR methylation is associated with attenuated resting parasympathetic tone, measured using high-frequency heart rate variability. Further, we found that this relationship is mediated by brain morphology, such that OXTR methylation is associated with increased gray matter of the central amygdala which is, in turn, associated with decreased parasympathetic tone. These results further our understanding of epigenetic regulation of the human oxytocin system and its role in anxiogenesis.
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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.