Healthy
Conditions
Brief summary
The main aim of the study is to investigate whether orally administered oxytocin (24IU) could modulate attention control using a social-emotional saccade/antisaccade eye-tracking paradigm.
Detailed description
Numerous studies have reported the effect of intranasally administered oxytocin on attentional processing including stimulus-driven bottom-up processing and top-down goal-directed inhibitory control. However, it is unclear whether the functional effects are mediated by the peptide directly entering the brain or indirectly via raising peripheral concentrations. One possible method of producing a similar pattern of increased peripheral oxytocin concentrations but without the possibility of direct entry into the brain would be to administer the peptide lingually. In the present double-blind, between-subject, placebo-controlled study, 80 healthy male subjects will be recruited and receive either oxytocin (24IU) or placebo control administered orally (lingual). 45 minutes after treatment subjects are required to complete a social-emotional saccade/antisaccade eye-tracking paradigm. This paradigm uses social (happy, sad, angry, fear, and neutral faces) as well as non-social (oval shapes) stimuli to explore social- and emotion-specific effects of orally administered oxytocin.
Interventions
DRUGOral Oxytocin
Administration of oxytocin orally (24 IU)
DRUGOral Placebo
Administration of placebo orally (24 IU)
Sponsors
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
TRIPLE (Subject, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Intervention model description
Between-subject randomized placebo-controlled double-blind pharmacological eye-tracking design
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
MALE
Age
18 Years to 30 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Male, healthy participants * Non smokers
Exclusion criteria
* Previous or current medical, psychiatric, neurological disorder * Regular medication * Use of any psychoactive substances in the 24 hours before experiment * Contra-indications for oxytocin * Contra-indications for eye-tracking data acquisition
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Effect of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade latencies towards social (facial) versus non-social (shape) stimuli | 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment | Comparison between social-specific saccade/antisaccade latencies (in milliseconds) between the oxytocin and placebo treatment conditions |
| Effect of oral oxytocin administration on error rates of saccade/antisaccade for social (facial) versus non-social (shape) stimuli | 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment | Comparison between social-specific error rates of saccade/antisaccade between the oxytocin and placebo treatment conditions. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Emotion-specific effects of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade latencies towards the separate facial emotions | 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment | Comparison between emotion-specific saccade/antisaccade latencies (in milliseconds) between the oxytocin and placebo treatment conditions |
| Emotion-specific effects of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade error rates for the separate facial emotions | 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment | Comparison between emotion-specific saccade/antisaccade error rates between the oxytocin and placebo treatment conditions |
Countries
China
Contacts
Primary ContactZhuang Qian, MD
Backup ContactXu Xiaolei, PhD
Outcome results
None listed