Intranasal oxytocin enhances socially-reinforced learning in rhesus monkeys

There are currently no drugs approved for the treatment of social deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One hypothesis for these deficits is that individuals with ASD lack the motivation to attend to social cues because those cues are not implicitly rewarding. Therefore, any drug that could enhance the rewarding quality of social stimuli could have a profound impact on the treatment of ASD, and other social disorders. Oxytocin (OT) is a neuropeptide that has been effective in enhancing social cognition and social reward in humans. The present study examined the ability of OT to selectively enhance learning after social compared to nonsocial reward in rhesus monkeys, an important species for modeling the neurobiology of social behavior in humans. Monkeys were required to learn an implicit visual matching task after receiving either intranasal (IN) OT or Placebo (saline). Correct trials were rewarded with the presentation of positive and negative social (play faces/threat faces) or nonsocial (banana/cage locks) stimuli, plus food. Incorrect trials were not rewarded. Results demonstrated a strong effect of socially-reinforced learning, monkeys’ performed significantly better when reinforced with social vs. nonsocial stimuli. Additionally, socially-reinforced learning was significantly better and occurred faster after IN-OT compared to placebo treatment. Performance in the IN-OT, but not Placebo, condition was also significantly better when the reinforcement stimuli were emotionally positive compared to negative facial expressions. These data support the hypothesis that OT may function to enhance prosocial behavior in primates by increasing the rewarding quality of emotionally positive, social compared to emotionally negative or nonsocial images. These data also support the use of the rhesus monkey as a model for exploring the neurobiological basis of social behavior and its impairment.