Study finds gene involved in remembering faces

A gene known to influence mother-infant bonding – the oxytocin receptor - may also play an important role in our ability to remember faces, according to an international study led by the UCL Institute of Child Health.  

The findings could help explain why some people are better able to memorize faces whilst others, including some on the autism spectrum disorder, may struggle with social recognition. 

In the report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers looked at genetic changes and the ability to remember faces in 198 families from the UK and Finland. The pinpointed gene, which regulates the oxytocin hormone, was found to be linked to facial recognition, while an inefficient form of the gene, found in around a third of the general population, was associated with relatively poor facial memory in both children and adults.

The families studied each had one child with autism. The research team looked at the influence of subtle differences in oxytocin receptor gene structure on facial memory in the parents, non-autistic siblings and autistic child, and discovered a single change in the DNA of the oxytocin receptor had a big impact on face memory skills in the families.

The researchers had previously found that the oxytocin receptor is essential for smell-based social recognition in rodents, like mice and voles. Because rodents use odors for social recognition while humans use visual facial cues, the finding that oxytocin affects that ability in both species suggests there has been conservation in the evolution of genetic and neural architectures involved in social information processing. The brain’s social recognition system transcends the type of senses used, from mouse to man.

Professor David Skuse, UCL Institute of Child Health, says: “Some people seem to remember the faces of almost everyone they have met, yet others struggle to recognise even close friends and family. We have found a possible explanation: a gene related to oxytocin, ‘the love hormone’, influences face memory and, surprisingly, about one in three people has a version of the gene that doesn’t work so well.”