Abstract: Oxytocin is a key modulator of social interaction, but we possess little knowledge of its underlying effects on neuropsychological processes. We used a spatio-temporal EEG microstates analysis to reveal oxytocin's effects on the temporal dynamics of intrinsically generated activity in neural networks. Given oxytocin's known anxiolytic effects, we hypothesized that it increases the temporal stability of the four archetypal EEG resting networks. Eighty-six male participants had received oxytocin or placebo intranasally before we recorded their resting EEG. As hypothesized, oxytocin globally increased the average duration of the four archetypal resting networks and specifically decreased the occurrence and coverage of an autonomic processing-related network to benefit greater coverage of an attention-related network. Moreover, these neurophysiological changes were more pronounced in participants with high anxiety levels and strong subjectively experienced effects of the oxytocin administration. In sum, our study shows that oxytocin reduces rapid switching among neural resting networks by increasing their temporal stability. Specifically, it seems to reduce the brain's need for preparing the internally-oriented processing of autonomic information, thus enabling the externally-oriented processing of social information. Changes in the temporal dynamics of resting networks might underlie oxytocin's anxiolytic effects - potentially informing innovative psychobiological treatment strategies

Abstract: As prosociality is key to facing many of our societies' global challenges (such as fighting a global pandemic), we need to better understand why some individuals are more prosocial than others. The present study takes a neural trait approach, examining whether the temporal dynamics of resting EEG networks are associated with inter-individual differences in prosociality. In two experimental sessions, we collected 55 healthy males' resting EEG, their self-reported prosocial concern and values, and their incentivized prosocial behavior across different reward domains (money, time) and social contexts (collective, individual). By means of EEG microstate analysis we identified the temporal coverage of four canonical resting networks (microstates A, B, C, and D) and their mutual communication in order to examine their association with an aggregated index of prosociality. Participants with a higher coverage of microstate A and more transitions from microstate C to A were more prosocial. Our study demonstrates that temporal dynamics of intrinsic brain networks can be linked to complex social behavior. On the basis of previous findings on links of microstate A with sensory processing, our findings suggest that participants with a tendency to engage in bottom-up processing during rest behave more prosocially than others

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has hit humanity globally. Besides its obvious threats to our physical health and economic stability, one can only speculate about the pandemic's and its countermeasures' psychosocial impacts. Here, we took advantage of a sample of healthy male participants who had completed psychosocial measures on mental health, environmental concern, and prejudice against asylum-seekers just before and during the nationwide lockdown in Germany in spring 2020. A follow-up assessment of 140 participants during the lockdown provided a unique opportunity to track psychosocial changes in a prospective longitudinal study design. In comparison to before the lockdown (1) mental health worsened, (2) environmental concern increased, and (3) prejudice against asylum-seekers decreased. Our study demonstrates psychosocial "side effects" of the pandemic that bring both challenges and opportunities for our society with regard to the handling of psychological reactions to this pandemic and further global crises, including climate change and mass migration

Abstract: Nonverbal expressions contribute substantially to social interaction by providing information on another person's intentions and feelings. While emotion recognition from dynamic facial expressions has been widely studied, dynamic body expressions and the interplay of emotion recognition from facial and body expressions have attracted less attention, as suitable diagnostic tools are scarce. Here, we provide validation data on a new open source paradigm enabling the assessment of emotion recognition from both 3D-animated emotional body expressions (Task 1: EmBody) and emotionally corresponding dynamic faces (Task 2: EmFace). Both tasks use visually standardized items depicting three emotional states (angry, happy, neutral), and can be used alone or together. We here demonstrate successful psychometric matching of the EmBody/EmFace items in a sample of 217 healthy subjects with excellent retest reliability and validity (correlations with the Reading-the-Mind-in-the-Eyes-Test and Autism-Spectrum Quotient, no correlations with intelligence, and given factorial validity). Taken together, the EmBody/EmFace is a novel, effective (

Abstract: Eye contact is an indispensable social signal, yet for some individuals it is also a source of discomfort they fear and avoid. However, it is still unknown whether gaze anxiety actually produces avoidant gaze behavior in naturalistic, face-to-face interactions. Here, we relied on a novel dual eye-tracking setup that allows us to assess interactive gaze behavior. To investigate the effect of gaze anxiety on gaze behavior, we a priori created groups of participants reporting high or low levels of gaze anxiety. These participants (n = 51) then performed a semi-standardized interaction with a previously unknown individual reporting a medium level of gaze anxiety. The gaze behavior of both groups did not differ in either classical one-way, eye-tracking parameters (e.g. unilateral eye gaze), or interactive, two-way ones (e.g. mutual gaze). Furthermore, the subjective ratings of both participants' interaction did not differ between groups. Gaze anxious individuals seem to exhibit normal gaze behavior which does not hamper the perceived quality of interactions in a naturalistic face-to-face setup. Our findings point to the existence of cognitive distortions in gaze anxious individuals whose exterior behavior might be less affected than feared by their interior anxiety