Healthy Male Volunteers
Conditions
Keywords
Oxytocin, Startle, moral dilemma, oxytocin receptor gene
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to determine whether oxytocin affects the modulation of startle reactivity by aversive social stimuli and to investigate the oxytocin effect on moral judgements. Furthermore the investigators explore the effects of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) polymorphisms on behavioral responses to social stimuli.
Detailed description
The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) can enhance the impact of positive social cues but may reduce that of negative ones, although it is unclear whether the latter causes blunted emotional responses. After OXT or placebo application participants are exposed to acoustic startle probes presented alone and during viewing of 60 color pictures mostly selected from the 'International Affective Picture System'. The paradigm featured 20 negative (mostly threatening), 20 neutral, and 20 positive pictures, presented for 5 s each. In the other part of the experiment, after intranasal OXT or placebo application participants respond to 60 moral dilemmas.
Interventions
DRUGOxytocin
Oxytocin: 24 IU; 3 puffs per nostril, each with 4 IU OXT
Sponsors
University Hospital, Bonn
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
TRIPLE (Subject, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
MALE
Age
18 Years to 60 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Healthy male volunteers
Exclusion criteria
* Current or past psychiatric disease * Current or past physical illness * Psychoactive medication * Tobacco smokers
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| baseline startle magnitude and affective modulation of the startle magnitude after oxytocin and placebo administration | 24 Months | The experimental tasks started 45 min after intranasal OXT/PLC administration. The STARTLE-paradigm features 20 negative (mostly threatening), 20 neutral, and 20 positive pictures, presented for 5 s each. The startle stimulus consists of a single 50-ms burst of white noise (100 dB) with nearly instantaneous rise and was delivered binaurally via headphones during 60% of the pictures (i.e. 12 from each category) at 2 - 4 s after picture onset. We examined the baseline startle magnitude as well as the affective modulation of the startle magnitude. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| moral decision making after oxytocin and placebo administration | 24 months | The experimental tasks started 45 min after OXT/PLC administration. The moral dilemmas performed in the present study were identical to those published previously by Greene et al.(2001). |
| oxytocin receptor (OXTR) polymorphism and correlation with social behavior | 24 months | OXTR genotyping, social behavior testing |
Countries
Germany
Outcome results
None listed