Effects of Oxytocin Administration on Cue-Induced Craving in Co-occurring Alcohol Use Disorder and PTSD: A Within-Participant Randomized Clinical Trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Oxytocin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) are much more likely to meet criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than the general population.

Compared to AUD alone, those with comorbid AUD-PTSD experience worse outcomes.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as men only.

A cue-induced craving paradigm was conducted using each participant's preferred alcoholic beverage versus a neutral water cue.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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.

As a double-blind Oxytocin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Oxytocin, giving a reference point.

Self-reported alcohol craving and heart rate (HR) were recorded and analyzed using linear mixed-effect models.

What Was Measured

Compared to AUD alone, those with comorbid AUD-PTSD experience worse outcomes.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alcoholism, Comorbidity, Craving, Cues, Heart Rate, Oxytocin and San Francisco.

Author keywords: Alcohol Use Disorder and PTSD.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2019 (Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research), a journal based in England.

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