Abstract
To feel other’s pain would elicit empathy. Some theorists hypothesized that observing other’s pain may activate the primary emotion of maternal care instinct, which may function as a precursor of empathy. The maternal care instinct and empathy share the same genetic background and neuroendocrine underpinnings. An extensive body of research has shown that maternal behaviors relate to the oxytocinergic system, which has a strong influence on empathy. These studies suggest that the maternal care instinct may mediate the effect of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on empathy. To provide evidence for this mediation, we used the subscale of CARE in Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to measure the maternal care instinct and tested two OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs53576 and rs13316193, in 880 high school participants (588 females, 292 males; Mage = 16.51 years old, SD = 0.65). Results showed that the genotype of rs13316193 was indirectly associated with empathy via CARE, suggesting a mediating role of CARE in the pathway from OXTR to empathy. These findings may contribute to an understanding of how empathy emerges when one witnesses another person in pain.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to our participants and their teachers who helped us finish the data collection. We also appreciate our lab members who helped us input data and provided invaluable and insightful discussions. Thanks to Byron Lee and Nick Bartlett who helped us with the language.
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [31872782, Yanjie Su].
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J.L., S.S., and Y.S. conceived and designed the study. J.L. and S.S. collected the data. J.L. curated and analyzed the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. M.P. contributed to the major revision of the manuscript. All authors revised the manuscript and approved the final version.
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Liu, J., Shang, S., Pei, M. et al. Influence of Two Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene (OXTR) on Empathy: the Mediation Role of a Primary Emotion, CARE. J Mol Neurosci 71, 252–261 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-020-01644-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-020-01644-2