The effect of intranasal oxytocin treatment on conditioned fear extinction and recall in a healthy human sample

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin.

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of OT in a fear-potentiated startle task of fear conditioning and extinction.

Why It Was Studied

Oxytocin (OT) is a mammalian neuropeptide that modulates activation of fear extinction-based neural circuits and fear responses.

Little is known, however, about the effects of OT treatment on conditioned fear responding and extinction in humans.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 44 participants were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults and adults, both men and women.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 44 healthy human participants was conducted.

Forty-five minutes after treatment, participants underwent extinction training.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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

As a double-blind Oxytocin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Oxytocin, giving a reference point.

Twenty-four hours later, subjects were tested for extinction recall.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Conditioning, Psychological, Extinction, Psychological, Fear, Mental Recall, Oxytocin and Reflex, Startle.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 44 participants.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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