Oral Oxytocin Modulation of Responses to Emotional Stimuli

Healthy Clinical Trial

Official title: Oral Oxytocin Modulation of Brain and Behavioral Responses to Emotional Stimuli in Healthy Men

Status Recruiting

Clinical Trial Summary

The main aim of the study is to investigate whether orally administered oxytocin (24IU) can modulate neural and behavioral responses to positive and negative valence stimuli during basal (emotional scenes) and higher order (facial stimuli) emotional processing.

Clinical Trial Description

A number of previous studies have reported both neural and social cognition effects of intranasally administered oxytocin, although it is unclear whether functional effects are mediated by the peptide directly entering the brain or indirectly via raising peripheral concentrations. The investigators hypothesize that one method of producing a similar pattern of increased peripheral oxytocin concentrations but without the possibility of direct entry into the brain would be to administer the peptide lingually. In the current double-blind, between-subject, placebo controlled study 80 healthy male subjects will be recruited and receive either oxytocin (24IU) or placebo control administered orally (lingual). 45 minutes after treatment subjects will be required to complete both face emotion and emotional scene processing tasks during fMRI scanning. After the tasks, subjects will be required to rate their valence, intensity and arousal response to the same emotional face and scene stimuli which were presented during MRI acquisition. Blood samples will be taken before and 30 min after the oral treatment interventions to assess oxytocin blood concentrations. All subjects will be asked to complete a range of questionnaires before treatment to control for possible pre-treatment confounders in terms of personality traits and mood: Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI), Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ), Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Second Version of Social Responsiveness Scale(SRS-2), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Healthy

• NCT number: NCT04320706
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
• Contact: Benjamin Becker, PhD
• Phone: +86 2861 830 811
• Email: ben_becker@gmx.de
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: February 20, 2020
• Completion date: March 1, 2021