Emory University in Atlanta has announced that researchers from its Yerkes National Primate Research Center, University College London, and the University of Tampere in Finland have discovered that the oxytocin receptor, a gene that influences mother-infant and pair bonding, also plays a role in the ability to remember faces.

To be published in an online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the discovery has important implications for disorders such as autism in which social information processing is disrupted, as well as for strategies aimed at improving social cognition in several psychiatric disorders. According to the report's co-authors, Larry Young of Emory and David Skuse of UCL's Institute of Child Health, one-third of the population possesses only the genetic variant of the receptor in question, which may help explain variations in the ability of people to remember other people's faces.

Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, and Autism Speaks, the study examined the influence of differences in oxytocin receptor gene structure in the parents, non-autistic siblings, and autistic children of 198 families and found that a single change in the DNA of the receptor had a significant impact on facial memory skills. According to Young, the finding suggests that oxytocin likely plays an important role more generally in social information processing, which is disrupted in disorders such as autism.

Skuse credited Young's previous research, which found that mice with a mutated oxytocin receptor failed to recognize mice they had previously encountered, for the discovery. "This led us to pursue more information about facial recognition,and the implications for disorders in which social information processing is disrupted."