Oxytocin's Effects on Face Attentional Processing

What Was Tested

This registered not phased trial tested Oxytocin.

It had two arms (groups): oxytocin group (experimental) and placebo group (placebo comparator).

Male subjects with oxytocin treatment.

Male subjects with placebo treatment.

The registry classes the interventions as drug.

More on the Plan

In a placebo-controlled double-blind between-subject design experiment, investigators plan to investigate the effect of oxytocin treatment on attentional processing of emotional faces.

Subjects complete questionnaires in Chinese versions before treatment administration, including the Beck Depression Inventory, Autism Spectrum Quotient , Trait Anxiety Inventory, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Multidimentional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness.

This experiment consists of two tasks including Emotional Face Cue-target Task and Visual Search Task.

In the first task, subjects need to make a response to judge the position of target after a cue-target is presented.

Who Took Part

The registry lists 60 actual participants took part.

It was open to men only aged from 18 years up to 30 years.

Healthy volunteers could join, not only people with the condition.

Examples of who could join: Healthy subjects without past or current psychiatric or neurological disorders.

The full record lists 1 inclusion and 2 exclusion criteria; among the exclusions: history of head injury; medical or psychiatric illness.

How the Study Was Run

The set-up was randomized, parallel-group and double-blind.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

Those kept unaware of assignments: participant and investigator.

It started in 2019-10-14 with completion listed for 2021-12-16.

It ran at 1 site in China.

Its stated primary purpose is basic science.

What Was Measured

Primary outcome: Response time in reponse to different emotional face targets (time frame: 1 hour). N2pc (time frame: 1 hour).

It also tracked 1 secondary outcome, for example Response accuracy in response to different emotional face targets.

What This Means in Plain Language

Put simply, this is a not phased, randomized trial of Oxytocin in 60 people.

The trial is marked completed; no results are posted to the registry yet, so nothing here describes outcomes.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.