Promising effects of oxytocin on social and food-related behaviour in young children with Prader-Willi syndrome: a randomized, double-blind, controlled crossover trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is known for hyperphagia with impaired satiety and a specific behavioural phenotype with stubbornness, temper tantrums, manipulative and controlling behaviour and obsessive-compulsive features.

In humans without PWS, intranasal oxytocin administration had positive effects on social and eating behaviour, and weight balance.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 25 children taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as children and teenagers.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Oxytocin group a baseline to be compared against.

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

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study in a PWS Reference Center in the Netherlands.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Age Factors, Anger, Depression, Feeding Behavior, Oxytocin, Prader-Willi Syndrome and Social Behavior.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 25 children.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2016 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

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