Oxytocin receptorgenevariantsareassociatedwithemotionrecognitionandresilience, but not with false-belief reasoning performance in healthy young Korean volunteers

Abstract

AIMS: A growing body of literature has indicated that oxytocin is associated with several domains of social cognition and behavior. Nevertheless, the effects of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms on social phenotypes remain unclear. Therefore, we aimed to explore the genetic influence of OXTR variants on social cognition (social perception and theory of mind) and resilience in healthy individuals.

METHODS: We examined the influence of 10 common OXTR variants on social cognitive abilities, including facial emotion recognition and theory of mind, and trait resilience in 264 unrelated, healthy participants.

RESULTS: We found a significant association between the A-C haplotype at rs237887-rs2268490 and facial affect recognition. In addition, the single marker rs2254298 was significantly associated with participants' scores on the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. In contrast, variations in OXTR did not affect participants' performance on the false-belief reasoning task.

CONCLUSIONS: Single makers or haplotypes at OXTR may contribute to individual differences in facial emotion recognition and psychological resilience.