Neural modulation of social reinforcement learning by intranasal oxytocin in male adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: a randomized trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers tested how reinforcement learning in social contexts and associated reward prediction error (RPE) signals in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) were modulated by intranasal oxytocin.

Male adults with a childhood diagnosis of ASD (n = 15) and healthy controls (n = 24; aged 18-26 years) performed a probabilistic reinforcement learning task during functional magnetic resonance imaging in a single-center (research center in Germany), randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trial.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 60 participants were involved.

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

The order of oxytocin/placebo was randomized for 60 participants.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

Neither the participants 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.

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

Using computational modeling of behavioral data, trial-by-trial RPE signals were assessed and related to brain activation in NAcc during reinforcing feedback in social and non-social contexts.

What Was Measured

The researchers tested how reinforcement learning in social contexts and associated reward prediction error (RPE) signals in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) were modulated by intranasal oxytocin.

The subject headings attached to it are Autism Spectrum Disorder, Feedback, Psychological, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Nucleus Accumbens, Oxytocin, Reinforcement, Social and Social Learning.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 60 participants.

The publication is from 2019 (Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology), a journal based in England.

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