Oxytocin plays an important role in human responses to threat processing. Few studies have directly examined the effects of oxytocin on our response to death-related stimuli. In the current study, 63 participants intranasally received either 32 IU of oxytocin or a placebo and thereafter completed a visual dot-probe task consisting of death-related and non-death related images. The results indicated that oxytocin enhanced participants' vigilance toward death-related images as well as increased their anxiety about and fear of death. Overall, oxytocin amplifies the defensive responses to a mortality threat, supporting the social salience model of oxytocin.

催产素在人类对威胁处理的反应中起着重要作用。很少有研究直接检查催产素对我们对死亡相关刺激的反应的影响。在目前的研究中，63 名参与者鼻内接受了 32 IU 的催产素或安慰剂，然后完成了由死亡相关和非死亡相关图像组成的视觉点探测任务。结果表明，催产素增强了参与者对死亡相关图像的警惕性，并增加了他们对死亡的焦虑和恐惧。总体而言，催产素增强了对死亡威胁的防御反应，支持催产素的社会显着性模型。