Intranasal oxytocin and the neural correlates of infant face processing in non-parent women

- Oxytocin (OT) is implicated in affiliative behavior.
- Non-parent women viewed infant and adult faces during electroencephalography.
- Relative to placebo, intranasal OT enhanced the P300 elicited only by infant faces.
- OT may enhance allocation of attention toward affiliative stimuli.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been widely employed to identify different stages of face processing, with recent research probing the neural dynamics of adult's processing of infant faces. Infant faces represent a salient category of visual stimuli, especially in parents, likely prioritized for processing through activity of the oxytocinergic system. Here we employed a randomized, double-blind, and within-subject crossover study of 24 non-parent women to examine the impact of intranasal oxytocin administration, relative to placebo, on processing infant and adult faces. Our main finding was that, relative to placebo, the P300 ERP elicited by infant faces was greater than the P300 elicited by adult faces in the oxytocin condition. Therefore, oxytocin administration may enhance the allocation of attention towards infant cues, even in non-parent women.