Effects of Oxytocin on Cognitive and Reactive Fear

Oxytocin Clinical Trial

— RAGE  

Official title:

Disentangling Effects of Oxytocin on Cognitive and Reactive Fear and the Moderating Role of the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04292444
• Other study ID #: RAGE
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 1
• Start date: December 13, 2019
• Est. completion date: May 2021

Study information

• Verified date: March 2020
• Source: University Hospital, Bonn
• Contact: Dirk Scheele, PhD
• Phone: +49 (0)228 287
• Email: Dirk.Scheele[@]ukbonn.de
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The study examines the (sub)regional specificity of anxiolytic oxytocin (OXT) effects on emotional face processing and reactive and cognitive fear. Preliminary data indicate that the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE) may regulate oxytocin transport into the brain. Thus, the study aims to replicate previous observations of oxytocin effects on the processing of fearful faces in the centro-medial amygdala and to assess whether a RAGE polymorphism (-374 T/A: rs1800624; TT vs. TA/AA), that has been shown to alter transcriptional activity, modulates anxiolytic OXT effects.

Description:

So far, no study examined selective oxytocin (OXT) effects on reactive (midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), central amygdala (CeA), hypothalamus, and the midcingulate cortex (MCC)) and cognitive fear (ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), hippocampus, and basolateral amygdala) and the reward system (striatum) with high spatial resolution. Previous studies showed that 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results in a higher spatial resolution and specificity than 3T MRI in these brain regions and would thus allow for a more detailed characterization of the neural effects.

To disentangle (sub)region-specific effects of OXT on task-related activations of the cingulate structures, the amygdala, the striatum, PAG and VMPFC, the investigators plan to acquire ultra-high field 7T fMRI data from healthy male participants while they perform (i) an emotional face matching task and (ii) a flight initiation distance (FID) task involving fast- or slow-attacking virtual predators that elicit distinct activations in the reactive and cognitive fear circuits. Furthermore, participants will be pre-stratified depending on RAGE polymorphisms to elucidate possible RAGE-related differential OXT effects.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 60
• Est. completion date: May 2021
• Est. primary completion date: May 2021
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Male
• Age group: 18 Years to 40 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• RAGE polymorphism (-374 T/A: rs1800624; TT vs. TA/AA)

• healthy male volunteers

• right handed

Exclusion Criteria:

• current psychiatric illness

• current psychiatric medication or psychotherapy

• MRI contraindication (e.g. metal in body, claustrophobia)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Oxytocin

Intervention

Drug:
• Oxytocin nasal spray
Intranasal administration of 24 International Units oxytocin 30 minutes before the start of the tasks.
• Placebo
The placebo nasal sprays contain identical ingredients except for the peptide itself (30 minutes before the start of the tasks).

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Germany	Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology	Bonn

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University Hospital, Bonn

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Germany, 

References & Publications (5)

Hahn A, Kranz GS, Seidel EM, Sladky R, Kraus C, Küblböck M, Pfabigan DM, Hummer A, Grahl A, Ganger S, Windischberger C, Lamm C, Lanzenberger R. Comparing neural response to painful electrical stimulation with functional MRI at 3 and 7 T. Neuroimage. 2013 Nov 15;82:336-43. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.010. Epub 2013 Jun 12. — View Citation

Hariri AR, Tessitore A, Mattay VS, Fera F, Weinberger DR. The amygdala response to emotional stimuli: a comparison of faces and scenes. Neuroimage. 2002 Sep;17(1):317-23. — View Citation

Hudson BI, Stickland MH, Futers TS, Grant PJ. Effects of novel polymorphisms in the RAGE gene on transcriptional regulation and their association with diabetic retinopathy. Diabetes. 2001 Jun;50(6):1505-11. — View Citation

Qi S, Hassabis D, Sun J, Guo F, Daw N, Mobbs D. How cognitive and reactive fear circuits optimize escape decisions in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Mar 20;115(12):3186-3191. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1712314115. Epub 2018 Mar 5. — View Citation

Yamamoto Y, Liang M, Munesue S, Deguchi K, Harashima A, Furuhara K, Yuhi T, Zhong J, Akther S, Goto H, Eguchi Y, Kitao Y, Hori O, Shiraishi Y, Ozaki N, Shimizu Y, Kamide T, Yoshikawa A, Hayashi Y, Nakada M, Lopatina O, Gerasimenko M, Komleva Y, Malinovskaya N, Salmina AB, Asano M, Nishimori K, Shoelson SE, Yamamoto H, Higashida H. Vascular RAGE transports oxytocin into the brain to elicit its maternal bonding behaviour in mice. Commun Biol. 2019 Feb 25;2:76. doi: 10.1038/s42003-019-0325-6. eCollection 2019. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Neural substrates of emotion processing, measured via blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal in the amygdala and striatum	Functional magnetic resonance imaging will be performed to measure the BOLD signal in response to emotional face stimuli. The investigators specifically plan to investigate neural responses to emotional faces in amygdala and striatal subregions. The BOLD signal in response to fearful faces relative to neutral faces and happy faces relative to neutral will be compared between the oxytocin and placebo sessions. To examine effects of the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE), analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with the between subjects factor RAGE polymorphism (-374 T/A: rs1800624; TT vs. TA/AA) will be conducted on the second level. For analyses of fMRI data, default procedures of the software SPM12 will be adapted for ultra-high-field imaging. The family-wise error rate will be used to correct p-values for multiple comparisons and p < .05 will be considered significant.	30 minutes after nasal spray administration
Primary	Neural responses in the flight initiation distance (FID) task	Functional magnetic resonance imaging will be performed to measure the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal in a flight initiation distance (FID) task, involving fast-, medium- and slow-attacking virtual predators that elicit distinct activations in the reactive and cognitive fear circuits. BOLD signals to different predator velocities will be analyzed. Analyses will focus on regions-of-interest associated with the processing of cognitive fear (vmPFC, PCC, hippocampus, and basolateral amygdala) and reactive fear (midbrain PAG, central amygdala, hypothalamus, and the MCC) and the reward system (striatum). To examine effects of the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE), ANOVAs with the between-subject factor RAGE polymorphism (-374 T/A: rs1800624; TT vs. TA/AA) will be conducted on the 2nd level. For the fMRI data, default procedures of the software SPM12 will be adapted for ultra-high-field imaging.	45 minutes after nasal spray administration
Primary	Flight distance and difficulty ratings in the flight initiation distance (FID) task	Behavioral data of the FID task (flight distance and difficulty ratings ) will be analyzed using mixed ANOVAs in the software SPSS with treatment (oxytocin vs. placebo) as within-subject factor and RAGE polymorphism (TT vs. TA/AA) as between-subject factor. Post-hoc t-tests will be Bonferroni-corrected. Behavioral data will be correlated with fMRI data of the FID task.	45 minutes after nasal spray administration
Secondary	Oxytocin concentration in blood plasma	Blood samples will be collected before and after the nasal spray administration to assess changes in oxytocin concentrations. Oxytocin concentrations will be analyzed using mixed ANOVAs in SPSS with time (pre vs. post) and treatment (oxytocin vs. placebo) as within-subject factors and RAGE polymorphism (TT vs. TA/AA) as between-subject factor.	10 minutes before nasal spray administration and 75 minutes after nasal spray administration
Secondary	Concentration of receptor for advanced glycation endproducts (extracellular domain) in blood plasma	Blood samples will be collected before the nasal spray administration to assess the RAGE (extracellular domain) concentration in blood plasma.; RAGE concentrations will be compared between RAGE polymorphisms (TT vs. TA/AA) with independent t-tests. Furthermore, the investigators plan to examine if the RAGE concentration moderates the effects of oxytocin on primary and secondary outcomes.	10 minutes before nasal spray administration

External Links

•   Neuromodulation of Emotion (NEMO) Research Group