While there has been an increase in studies investigating the relationship between endogenous oxytocin (OXT) concentrations and human social interactions over the past decades, these studies still seem far from converging, both in methodological terms and in terms of their results. This systematic review and meta-analysis were aimed at a comprehensive evaluation and synthesis of empirical evidence on the relationship between endogenous OXT concentrations and human social interactions by reviewing studies published between 1970 and July 2020 and addressing various related methodological and analytical limitations. Sixty-three studies were included in the qualitative synthesis, and results from 51 studies were pooled in a meta-analysis (n = 3,741 participants). The results indicated that social interaction did not lead to an expected hormonal response in causal designs, either in a pre-post design (g = 0.079) or when comparing experimental conditions with and without social interaction (g = 0.256). However, in correlational designs, the overall mean effect size (ES) of the correlations between indicators of social interaction and OXT concentrations was significantly different from zero (z = 0.137). In both designs, subgroup analyses revealed that studies involving either parent-child interactions, or the utilization of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method for OXT analysis, or unrestricted eating, drinking, or exercise before biofluid collection showed significantly higher than zero mean ESs. This review exposes the observed inconsistencies and suggests that standardized, replicable, and reliable approaches to assessing social interaction and measuring OXT concentrations need to be developed to study neurochemical mechanisms of sociality in humans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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内源性催产素和人类社会互动：系统评价和荟萃分析。


尽管过去几十年来越来越多的研究调查内源性催产素（OXT）浓度与人类社会互动之间的关系，但这些研究无论在方法论方面还是在结果方面似乎仍然远未趋同。这项系统综述和荟萃分析旨在通过回顾 1970 年至 2020 年 7 月期间发表的研究并解决各种相关的方法和分析局限性，对内源性 OXT 浓度与人类社会互动之间关系的经验证据进行全面评估和综合。定性综合中纳入了 63 项研究，荟萃分析中汇总了 51 项研究的结果（n = 3,741 名参与者）。结果表明，无论是在前后设计中（g = 0.079）还是在比较有和没有社交互动的实验条件（g = 0.256）时，社交互动都不会导致因果设计中预期的激素反应。然而，在相关设计中，社交互动指标与 OXT 浓度之间相关性的总体平均效应大小 (ES) 与零显着不同 (z = 0.137)。在这两种设计中，亚组分析显示，涉及亲子互动、利用酶联免疫吸附测定方法进行 OXT 分析、或在生物体液采集前不限制饮食或运动的研究均显示显着高于零均值 ES。本综述揭示了观察到的不一致之处，并建议需要开发标准化、可复制且可靠的方法来评估社交互动和测量 OXT 浓度，以研究人类社交的神经化学机制。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。