Intranasal oxytocin treatment for social deficits and biomarkers of response in children with autism

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by core social deficits.

Prognosis is poor, in part, because existing medications target only associated ASD features.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 32 children taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as children, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Oxytocin could be set against what happens without it.

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

What Was Measured

However, prior OXT treatment trials have produced equivocal results, perhaps because of variability in patients' underlying neuropeptide biology, but this hypothesis has not been tested.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Inhalation, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Oxytocics, Oxytocin and Social Skills.

Author keywords: biomarkers, clinical trial and social functioning.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 32 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.

The publication is from 2017 (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page.