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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Amygdala responses to salient social cues vary with oxytocin receptor genotype in youth.

Authors: Marusak, Hilary A; Furman, Daniella J; Kuruvadi, Nisha; Shattuck, David W; Joshi, Shantanu H; Joshi, Anand A; Etkin, Amit; Thomason, Moriah E

Published In Neuropsychologia, (2015 Dec)

Abstract: Depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder are linked to altered limbic morphology, dysregulated neuroendocrine function, and heightened amygdala responses to salient social cues. Oxytocin appears to be a potent modulator of amygdala reactivity and neuroendocrine responses to psychosocial stress. Given these stress regulatory effects, there is increasing interest in understanding the role of oxytocin in vulnerability to stress-related clinical disorders. The present study examines the impact of a common functional variant within the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene (rs2254298) on structure and function of the amygdala in a high-risk sample of urban, low-income, minority youth with a high incidence of early life stress (ELS). Compared to G/G homozygotes, youth carrying the OXTR A-allele showed increased amygdala volume, reduced behavioral performance, and heightened amygdala response during two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks that involved viewing socially-relevant face stimuli. Higher amygdala response was related to ELS in A-allele carriers but not G/G homozygotes. These findings underscore a series of relations among a common oxytocin system gene variant, ELS exposure, and structure and function of the amygdala in early life. Heightened amygdala response to salient social cues in OXTR A-allele carriers may elevate risk for emotional psychopathology by increasing amygdala involvement in disambiguating environmental cues, particularly for individuals with ELS.

PubMed ID: 26477647 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Adolescent; Amygdala/blood supply; Amygdala/pathology; Amygdala/physiopathology*; Child; Cues*; Emotions/physiology; Female; Functional Laterality; Genotype; Gray Matter/blood supply; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Minority Groups; Oxygen/blood; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide/genetics*; Poverty; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Receptors, Oxytocin/genetics*; Stress, Psychological/genetics*; Stress, Psychological/pathology*

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