ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2020
Epigenetic modification of the oxytocin receptor gene: implications for autism symptom severity and brain functional connectivity.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 107 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of the oxytocinergic system in oral microbiome composition in children with autism: evidence from a randomized controlled trial of intranasal oxytocin.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Random forest and Shapley Additive exPlanations predict oxytocin targeted effects on brain functional networks involved in salience and sensorimotor processing, in a randomized clinical trial in autism.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Bridging Genes and Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Contributions of OXTR Gene Variants and Methylation to Brain Connectivity Patterns.Psychiatry investigation · 2026Article
- 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
- Generating Biologically Relevant Subtypes of Autism Spectrum Disorder with differential responses to Acute Oxytocin Administration in a Randomized Trial using Random Forest Models and K-means Clustering.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Oxytocin Deficiency in Childhood and Adolescence: Clinical Features, Diagnostic Challenges and Therapeutic Perspectives.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Review
- Dissecting the heterogeneity of autism spectrum disorder with sensory behavior, brain, and epigenetic factors.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Neural connectivity of oxytocin receptor-expressing neurons in the nucleus accumbens and their role in social attachment.Hormones and behavior · 2025Article
- Pharmaco-Multiomics: A New Frontier in Precision Psychiatry.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- The Dynamicity of the Oxytocin Receptor in the Brain May Trigger Sensory Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Review
- Cross-generational mechanisms of maternal gut microbiota in modulating offspring autism spectrum disorder risk: from the gut-brain axis to translational challenges in precision interventions.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Review
- DNA Methylation in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Biomarker or Pharmacological Target?Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Intrapartum exposure to synthetic oxytocin, maternal BMI, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children within the ECHO consortium.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2024Article
- Intranasal oxytocin in a genetic animal model of autism.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Peripheral oxytocin levels are linked to hypothalamic gray matter volume in autistic adults: a cross-sectional secondary data analysis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Intercontinental insights into autism spectrum disorder: a synthesis of environmental influences and DNA methylation.Environmental epigenetics · 2024Review
- A targeted long-read sequencing approach questions the association of OXTR methylation with high-functioning autism.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Article
- Detection, processing and reinforcement of social cues: regulation by the oxytocin system.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2023Review
- Natural variation in oxytocin receptor signaling causes widespread changes in brain transcription: a link to the natural killer gene complex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Evaluation of the pooled sample method in Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip array by comparison with individual samples.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The role of oxytocin in social cognition has attracted tremendous interest in social neuroscience and psychiatry. Some studies have reported improvement in social symptoms following oxytocin treatment in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), while others point to endogenous factors influencing its efficiency and to mixed results in terms of long-term clinical benefits. Epigenetic modification to the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) in ASD could be an informative biomarker of treatment efficacy. Yet, little is known about the relationship between OXTR methylation, clinical severity, and brain function in ASD. Here, we investigated the relationship between OXTR methylation, ASD diagnosis (in N = 35 ASD and N = 64 neurotypical group), measures of social responsiveness, and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between areas involved in social cognition and reward processing (in a subset of ASD, N = 30). Adults with ASD showed higher OXTR methylation levels in the intron 1 area compared with neurotypical subjects. This hypermethylation was related to clinical symptoms and to a hypoconnectivity between cortico-cortical areas involved in theory of mind. Methylation at a CpG site in the exon 1 area was positively related to social responsiveness deficits in ASD and to a hyperconnectivity between striatal and cortical brain areas. Taken together, these findings provide initial evidence for OXTR hypermethylation in the intron area as a potential biomarker for adults with ASD with less severe developmental communication deficits, but with impairments in theory of mind and self-awareness. Also, OXTR methylation in the exon 1 area could be a potential biomarker of sociability sensitive to life experiences.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.