Placebo Effects in the Neuroendocrine System: Conditioning of the Oxytocin Responses

What Was Tested

This controlled clinical trial looks at Oxytocin.

There is evidence that placebo effects may influence hormone secretion.

However, few studies have examined placebo effects in the endocrine system, including oxytocin placebo effects.

Why It Was Studied

The study was registered as a clinical trial on www.trialregister.nl (number NTR5596).

Who Took Part

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

Ninety-nine women were assigned to a conditioned, control, or drug control group.

In the two-phase conditioning paradigm, participants in the conditioned and drug control groups received an oxytocin nasal spray combined with a distinctive smell (conditioned stimulus [CS]) for three acquisition days, whereas the control group received placebo spray.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a placebo-controlled study.

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

Subsequently, the conditioned and control groups received placebo spray with the CS and the drug control group received oxytocin spray for three evocation days.

Salivary oxytocin was measured several times during each day.

Pain sensitivity and facial evaluation tests previously used in oxytocin research were also administered.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Conditioning, Classical, Nasal Sprays, Neurosecretory Systems, Olfactory Perception, Oxytocin, Placebo Effect and Saliva.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2020 (Psychosomatic medicine), a journal based in United States.

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