Gene also decides the ability to remember people's faces

(Identify the gene) - Identified genes that affect the ability to remember faces.

New studies show that oxytocin receptor (oxytocin receptor) , a gene known to influence mother and fetal connections, and link couples in monogamous species, also plays a role. Important role in the ability to remember faces . This study has important applications for disorders in which social information processes are broken, including autism image disorders. In addition, research can lead to strategies to improve new social awareness in some mental disorders.

A group of researchers from Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta, University College London in the UK and Tampere University in Finland published the study of the institute. academic science Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the study's author, Yerkes, Associate Professor, Larry Young, Department of Psychiatry at Medical School and Emory University's Translational Social Neuroscience (CTSN), this is the first study to demonstrate that variation in oxytocin receptor gene affects facial recognition skills.

He and co-author of the study David Skuse point out that oxytocin plays an important role in enhancing our ability to recognize someone , but about a third of the population is Organic genetic variation has a negative impact on this ability. The researchers say this finding helps explain why some people can remember almost all the people they met while others have difficulty recognizing the members themselves. their own family.

Young, Skuse and their team studied 198 families with an autistic child because these families are known to show a wide range of variations in face recognition skills; 2/3 of families come from England, and the rest comes from Finland.

Researchers at Emory University have previously found that oxytocin receptors are important for olfactory-based social awareness in rodents, such as mice and hamsters, and are suspected of having the same Whether this gene can affect human face recognition.

They examined the effects of subtle differences in the structure of oxytocin receptor genes on facial memory in parents, siblings not autistic and autistic children, and discovered A single change in the DNA of oxytocin receptors has a major impact on facial memory skills in these families. According to Young, this study implies that oxytocin seems to play a more important role in the social information process, which is disrupted in disorders such as autism.

In addition, this study highlights the evolutionary aspect. Rodents use odors to identify society while humans use visual cues on their faces. This suggests an ancient conservation of genetic and neurological structures associated with social information processing that has overcome the way the sensation has been used from rats to humans.

Skuse acknowledged Young's previous research found that mice with an unknown oxytocin receptor could not recognize the mice they had encountered before.'This leads us to pursue more information about facial recognition and applications for treating disorders in which social information processing is broken.'

Young added that the team will continue to work together to pursue strategies to improve social awareness of mental disorders based on current research results.