Clinical trial NCT03085628: Sex- and Context-dependent Effects of Oxytocin on Social Reward Processing
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1
Social Behavior
Emotion
Keywords: social sharing
social reward
functional magnetic resonance imaging
reward circuit
Lead sponsor: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2017-03-21
Enrollment: 252
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 17
Maximum age (years): 30
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The aim of the present study is to examine whether the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) influences social reward processing and whether the effects are context- and sex-dependent.

Detailed description: In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, between-subject design healthy volunteers will receive either oxytocin or placebo nasal spray (40IU in 10 puffs).

Subjects will come to the experiment in pairs (two friends of the same sex). 45 min after drug administration, the two subjects will simultaneously undergo a social reward task - during the task, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data will be acquired from one of them. During the social reward task subjects will be asked to rate the valence and arousal of emotional pictures in three different conditions: alone, share with a stranger and share with their friend.

Before treatment, subjects will complete a range of validated questionnaires to control for potential confounders, such as level of depression (assessed using the BDI) and to explore associations between relevant personality factors and treatment effects, such as adult attachment style (assessed using the AAS).

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Healthy subjects without past or current psychiatric or neurological disorder, right-handed, had normal or corrected-to normal vision.

Exclusion Criteria:

* self-reported medication use, substance abuse, and presence of medical or psychiatric disorders

Primary outcomes:
measure: fMRI: neural activity during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: Modulatory effects of sex on fMRI based neural indices during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: fMRI: functional connectivity during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Behavior: arousal ratings during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: Behavior: valence rating during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: Modulatory effects of sex on arousal ratings during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: Modulatory effects of sex on valence ratings during social reward processing
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
measure: Pre-treatment modulators: attachment style (AAS)
timeFrame: 45-115 minutes after administration
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chengdu
country: China
facility: school of life science and technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
state: Sichuan
Study officials:
References:
citation: Ma X, Zhao W, Luo R, Zhou F, Geng Y, Xu L, Gao Z, Zheng X, Becker B, Kendrick KM. Sex- and context-dependent effects of oxytocin on social sharing. Neuroimage. 2018 Dec;183:62-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.08.004. Epub 2018 Aug 4.