Monitoring the effect of oxytocin on the neural sensitivity to emotional faces via frequency-tagging EEG: A double-blind, cross-over study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

These distinctive frequency tags for neutral and expressive stimuli allowed direct and objective quantification of the neural expression-categorization responses.

Why It Was Studied

Neutral faces with different identities were presented at 6 Hz, periodically interleaved with an expressive face (angry, fearful, and happy, in separate sequences) every fifth image (i.e., 1.2 Hz oddball frequency).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 31 men taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Oxytocin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

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.

In the crossover set-up each of the men took both Oxytocin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Electroencephalography, Emotions, Facial Expression and Oxytocin.

The authors tagged it with the keywords EEG, Emotional face processing and Frequency-tagging EEG.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 31 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 2022 (Psychophysiology), a journal based in United States.

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