Oxytocin increases eye gaze in schizophrenia

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin.

Abnormal eye gaze is common in schizophrenia and linked to functional impairment.

The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin modulates visual attention to social stimuli, but its effects on eye gaze in schizophrenia are unknown.

Who Took Part

The study group was 33 men.

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

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The men were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the men 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.

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

What Was Measured

The researchers tested for differences in fixation time on the eyes between patients and controls as well as oxytocin effects using linear mixed-effects models.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Eye Movement Measurements, Facial Recognition, Fixation, Ocular, Object Attachment, Oxytocin, Schizophrenia and Social Perception.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Eye-tracking and Social behavior.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 33 men.

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 2019 (Schizophrenia research), a journal based in Netherlands.

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