Article from Psychology Today that talks about Oxytocin and the recognition of emotional facial expressions by those with Autism Spectrum Disorder:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201210/weeks-top-posts-1/emotion-recognition-in-autism
"For the experiment, Yamada recruited 19 men with an ASD and 19 men
without any ASD as a control group. He tested the ability to recognize
emotions after he gave them oxytocin and again after he gave them a
placebo. Both the oxytocin and placebo were given through a nasal spray,
a technique used in many oxytocin studies. Half the participants
received oxytocin first, and the other half received placebo first.
...
Here's where it got interesting. Whereas the control group did not
improve for difficult emotions following oxytocin dosing, the ASD group
showed a marked improvement. The control group got 45 percent correct,
but the ASD group now recognized around 43 percent of difficult
emotions. They improved about eight points compared to placebo, and
almost matched the performance of the control group.
To understand
the relationship between severity of ASD and improvement on the task,
Yamada calculated how much better each person did at recognizing
difficult emotions following oxytocin. He found that the individuals
with the most severe ASDs showed the most improvement on the RMET after
taking oxytocin.
His findings suggest a possible role for oxytocin
in ASDs. Lower levels may be part of the reason why individuals with
ASDs tend to have more difficulty recognizing emotions. However, the
role of oxytocin may depend on the severity of the disorder. "
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