[Effects of oxytocin pathway gene polymorphisms and adverse childhood experiences on emotion recognition in schizophrenia spectrum disorders].

Objective: To study a role of the interaction of oxytocin pathway gene polymorphisms and adverse childhood experiences (ACE) in facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits in schizophrenia.
Material and Methods: Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders ( n= 699) completed cognitive testing, which included a FER task. We determined patients' genotypes for common polymorphisms in three of the oxytocin pathway genes which were previously associated with face perception: OXTR (rs53576, rs7632287), CD38 (rs3796863) and ARNT2 (rs4778599). The presence of ACE in the patient's history was assessed via an analysis of medical records.
Results: In our sample, 49% of participants experienced ACE. ANCOVA adjusted for age and gender revealed a significant interaction effect of OXTR rs53576 with ACE on FER scores (F=11.51; p <0.001; η ² _p =0.02). The effect remained significant when accounting for cognitive functioning and negative symptoms. Carriers of the A allele without ACE recognized emotions worse than GG homozygotes without ACE ( p= 0.039) and carriers of the A allele with ACE ( p =0.009).
Conclusion: The results are consistent with the notion of the A (rs53576) allele's role in sensitivity to childhood experiences that influence the psychosocial development and can be used in further studies of the oxytocin treatment of social cognition and social adaptation of patients with schizophrenia.