Opioid dependence impairs the human brain's ability to perceive baby schema, or cuteness, which has been shown to trigger caregiving impulses in humans, according to new research presented on Monday at the European College of Neuropsychopharmcology Congress.
The new research builds on previous studies published in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and Ethology. These studies found that baby schema — large eyes, big foreheads and small chins — inspires caretaking motivations and triggers activity in the area of the brain associated with reward.
For the new study, researchers recruited 47 opioid-dependent adults, assessed how they responded to baby schema and recorded the brain's response using a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner both prior to and after 10 days of treatment with the opioid blocker naltrexone. The fMRIs revealed that the brains of participants prior to naltrexone treatment did not respond to baby schema. After treatment, the response in the brain more closely resembled the typical brain reaction of a person not dependent on opioids.
Addressing the results, Daniel Langleben, MD, an associate professor in psychiatry with the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia and one of the study's lead researchers, said, "This may indicate the mechanism underlying problems with social cognition deficits in people who abuse opioids ... Our data also raise the question whether opioid medications may affect social cognition in general. Depending on the clinical context such effect could be either desirable or not. Opioids are some of the most common medications in the world, often taken on a long term basis, so this is something to consider."
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