Oxytocin and the altered ego: Altered face processing in social anxiety

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alexander L. Gerlach, since 4/2016
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 221408107

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) ranks as the third most common mental health disorder after depression and alcoholism and is characterized by excessive fear of negative evaluation by others. Since emotional facial expressions are evolutionarily relevant social signals and quickly communicate sympathy or rejection, they have been researched extensively in SAD. Especially attentional vigilance to or behavioral avoidance of threatening faces have been identified as maintaining if not causal factors in SAD. In addition, a growing body of evidence has shown that hormones such as, e.g., testosterone, or progesterone enhances processing of social stimuli such as threatening faces. Only a few studies, however, have investigated the influence of hormones that may attenuate threat perception on face processing. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT), for example, is known to reduce social-threat perception in healthy humans and reduces amygdala responses to fearful faces. It increases communication, affiliation, and trust but also the processing of positive social cues such as friendly faces. Although it is known that hormonal fluctuations play an important role in the markedness of social behavior, astonishingly little research has investigated the interplay of hormones, the specificity of face processing, and social behavior in SAD. As lack of social affiliation, and the desire to be evaluated favorably by others form the very basis of SAD, OXT has the potential to further improve our understanding of endocrinological influences on face processing and closely related social behavior in healthy and in socially anxious individuals. The proposed studies will be the first to systematically investigate the effects of OXT on distinct aspects of face processing, related social behaviors, and their relationship with social anxiety. The effect of OXT on (a) attentional bias to angry, neutral, happy and contemptuous facial expressions, approach and avoidance tendencies with regard to the afore mentioned faces, and interpersonal trust, and (b) attentional bias to sad, neutral, surprised and disgusted facial expressions, approach and avoidance tendencies with regard to the afore mentioned faces, and personal space, will be investigated in socially high and low anxious males and females. The findings will significantly further the understanding of processing of social information and related social behavior in SAD.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Markus Heinrichs
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Wolf-Gero Lange, Ph.D., until 3/2016