Clinical trial NCT04493515: Oral Oxytocin's Effects on Attention Control
Official title: Oral Oxytocin's Effects on Attention Control: An Eye-tracking Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Healthy
Lead sponsor: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-07-30
Enrollment: 80
Sex: MALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 30
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Between-subject randomized placebo-controlled double-blind pharmacological eye-tracking design
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

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.

Eligibility criteria: 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

Primary outcomes:
measure: Effect of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade latencies towards social (facial) versus non-social (shape) stimuli
timeFrame: 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment
measure: Effect of oral oxytocin administration on error rates of saccade/antisaccade for social (facial) versus non-social (shape) stimuli
timeFrame: 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Emotion-specific effects of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade latencies towards the separate facial emotions
timeFrame: 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment
measure: Emotion-specific effects of oral oxytocin administration on saccade/antisaccade error rates for the separate facial emotions
timeFrame: 45 minutes - 100 minutes after treatment
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chengdu
country: China
facility: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China(UESTC)
state: Sichuan
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC)
name: Keith Kendrick, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: