Associations between the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and “mind-reading” in humans—An exploratory study

Abstract

Background/aims: The application of intranasal oxytocin enhances facial emotion recognition in normal subjects and in subjects with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition, various features of social cognition have been associated with variants of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR). Therefore, we tested for associations between mind-reading, a measure for social recognition and OXTR polymorphisms. Methods: 76 healthy adolescents and young adults were tested for associations between OXTR rs53576, rs2254298, rs2228485 and mind-reading using the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test” (RMET). Results: After Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, rs2228485 was associated with the number of incorrect answers when subjects evaluated male faces (P =0.000639). There were also associations between OXTR rs53576, rs2254298 and rs2228485 and other RMET dimensions according to P <0.05 (uncorrected). Conclusion: This study adds further evidence to the hypothesis that genetic variations in the OXTR modulate mind-reading and social behaviour.

• Association study
• Mind-reading
• OXTR
• Oxytocin

Acknowledgements

We thank Ines Ulrich, Ulrike Höpfner and Andreas Schattenberg for their contributions in laboratory work, DNA sampling and data processing.

Declaration of interest:The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This work is part of the Community Medicine research net (CMR) of the University of Greifswald, Germany, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant ZZ9603), the Ministry of Cultural affairs and the Social Ministry of the Federal State of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.