Neurochemical evidence for differential effects of acute and repeated oxytocin administration

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The current study employed a combination of human clinical trial and animal study to compare neurochemical changes induced by acute and repeated oxytocin administrations.

Why It Was Studied

A discrepancy in oxytocin's behavioral effects between acute and repeated administrations indicates distinct underlying neurobiological mechanisms.

Medial prefrontal transcript expression levels were analyzed in adult male C57BL/6J mice after intraperitoneal injection of oxytocin or saline either once (200 ng/100 μL/mouse, n = 12) or for 14 consecutive days (200 ng/100 μL/mouse/day, n = 16).

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as men only.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

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

Each person switched between Oxytocin and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

What Was Measured

Medial prefrontal transcript expression levels were analyzed in adult male C57BL/6J mice after intraperitoneal injection of oxytocin or saline either once (200 ng/100 μL/mouse, n = 12) or for 14 consecutive days (200 ng/100 μL/mouse/day, n = 16).

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Autism Spectrum Disorder, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL and Oxytocin.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The publication is from 2021 (Molecular psychiatry), a journal based in England.

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