Oxytocinergic modulation of speech production

Description: Many socio-affective behaviors, such as speech, are modulated by oxytocin. While oxytocin modulates speech perception, it is not known whether it also affects speech production. We investigated effects of oxytocin administration and interactions with the functional rs53576 oxytocin receptor (OXTR) polymorphism on produced speech and its underlying brain activity. During fMRI, 52 healthy male participants read sentences with either neutral or happy intonation, a covert reading condition served as a common baseline. Participants were studied once under the influence of intranasal oxytocin and in another session under placebo. When preparing to speak, oxytocin enhanced brain activity in sensorimotor cortices and regions of both dorsal and right ventral speech processing streams, as well as subcortical and cortical limbic and executive control regions. In some of these regions, the rs53576 OXTR polymorphism modulated oxytocin administration-related brain activity. Oxytocin also gated cortical-basal ganglia circuits involved in the generation of happy prosody.