Sex and diagnosis specific associations between DNA methylation of the oxytocin receptor gene with emotion processing and temporal-limbic and prefrontal brain volumes in psychotic disorders.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The oxytocin (OT) system, including receptor epigenetic mechanisms, has been shown to influence emotion processing, especially in females. Whether OT receptor (OXTR) epigenetic alterations occur across psychotic disorders in relation to illness-related disturbances in social cognition and brain anatomy is unknown.

Methods

Participants with affective and nonaffective psychotic disorders (92 women, 75 men) and healthy controls (38 women, 37 men) from the Chicago site of the BSNIP study completed the Penn Emotion Recognition Test (ER-40), a facial emotion recognition task. We measured cytosine methylation at site -934 upstream of the OXTR start codon in DNA from whole blood, and for the first time their relationship with plasma OT levels assessed by enz

SUBMITTER: Rubin LH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4788596 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature