Conditions: Social Perception
Keywords: Intranasal oxytocin Social perception EEG/ERP
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: CROSSOVER
Enrollment: 26
Healthy volunteers: yes

Brief summary:
The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of oxytocin on social behavior and brain activity using EEG and the event-related potential (ERP) technique. The value of EEG is its high temporal specificity, enabling precision in the timing of social behavior to be addressed. In order to elicit social responses in the human brain, a variety of social and emotional visual stimuli will be presented during EEG recording, namely infant and adult faces and houses. Brain responses after intranasal oxytocin will then be compared with placebo, to examine the effect of intranasal oxytocin on central nervous system activity. We hypothesize that intranasal oxytocin will enhance the neural response to social stimuli (infant and adult faces) but not to non-social stimuli (houses).

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: Each participant will receive both the oxytocin nasal spray in one visit AND the placebo nasal spray in another visit (randomized) in this design. arm 2: Each participant will receive both the oxytocin nasal spray in one visit AND the placebo nasal spray in another visit (randomized) in this design.

Interventions: intervention 1: Oxytocin intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 24 International Units of Oxytocin in a Nasal Spray intervention 2: Placebo will contain all ingredients except the active oxytocin in the Nasal Spray.

Protocol document: