Intranasal oxytocin decreases self-oriented learning

What Was Tested

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

Over the last two decades, surge studies have been conducted to investigate how oxytocin impacts other-oriented processes, such as trust and generosity (Zak et al. in PLoS ONE 2(11):e1128, 2007); however, the examination of the effect of oxytocin on self-related processes was relatively inadequate.

The researchers aim to investigate the effect of IN-OT on self-oriented learning across different contexts (self-other independent vs. self-other dependent) and uncover the process by which IN-OT affects dynamic behavior changes.

Why It Was Studied

Oxytocin has been found to play an important role in human social cognition and social interaction.

Appropriate and efficient social interactions require both self- and other-related information processing.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, both men and women.

The researchers performed two double-blind, placebo-controlled studies and used reinforcement learning theory to integrate action and related feedback for participants' behaviors.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Oxytocin, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

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

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Choice Behavior, Cognition, Feedback, Psychological, Learning, Oxytocin, Reinforcement, Psychology and Reward.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Choice variability, Reinforcement learning and Self-oriented learning.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2021 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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