Oxytocin and vasopressin modulate risk-taking

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin and Vasopressin.

The modulation of risk-taking is critical for adaptive and optimal behavior.

This study examined how oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) influence risk-taking in function of three parameters: sex, risk-valence, and social context.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Oxytocin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Oxytocin, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

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

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Oxytocin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

What Was Measured

Twenty-nine healthy adults (14 males) completed a risk-taking task, the Stunt task, both in a social-stress (evaluation by unfamiliar peers) and non-social context, in three separate drug treatment sessions.

The subject headings attached to it are Anxiety, Arginine Vasopressin, Oxytocin, Probability, Psychological Tests, Psychotropic Drugs and Reaction Time.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Motivated behavior, Neuropeptides, Risk-valence, Sex and Social stress.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The publication is from 2015 (Physiology & behavior), a journal based in United States.

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