Quantitative facial expression analysis revealed the efficacy and time course of oxytocin in autism

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers tested this hypothesis using repeatable, objective, and quantitative measurement of the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.

Why It Was Studied

The main outcomes were statistical representative values of objectively quantified facial expression intensity in a repeatable part of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule: the maximum probability (i.e. mode) and the natural logarithm of mode on the probability density function of neutral facial expression and the natural logarithm of mode on the probability density function of happy expression.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

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 participants took both Oxytocin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

What Was Measured

The main outcomes were statistical representative values of objectively quantified facial expression intensity in a repeatable part of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule: the maximum probability (i.e. mode) and the natural logarithm of mode on the probability density function of neutral facial expression and the natural logarithm of mode on the probability density function of happy expression.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Autism Spectrum Disorder, Facial Expression, Interpersonal Relations and Oxytocin.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Asperger syndrome, neuroendocrinology, neuropeptide, pervasive developmental disorder and surrogate marker.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The publication is from 2019 (Brain : a journal of neurology), a journal based in England.

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