Intranasal Oxytocin Selectively Modulates Large-Scale Brain Networks in Humans

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

A growing body of evidence indicates that the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) alters the neural correlates of socioemotional and salience processing.

Yet the effects of OT over important large-scale networks involved in these processes, such as the default mode (DM), ventral attention (VA), and cingulo-opercular (CO) networks, remain unknown.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 38 subjects were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults and adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

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

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

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

What Was Measured

Based on the relevance of interindividual factors for OT effects, the researchers correlated individual network changes with behavioral performance in a decision-making task and with impulsivity scores.

The subject headings attached to it are Attention, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Decision Making, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted and Impulsive Behavior.

The authors tagged it with the keywords fMRI, functional connectivity, large-scale brain networks, oxytocin and salience.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 38 subjects.

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 (Brain connectivity), a journal based in United States.

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