Conditions: Sleep Apnea
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 8
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
In human volunteers intranasal administration of oxytocin significantly increases parasympathetic and decreases sympathetic cardiac control. OSA is a very prevalent disease with high cardiovascular risk factors, yet this disease remains very poorly treated. This proposal, based on the current literature and new basic science results detailed above on the role of oxytocin in cardiovascular control, will test if oxytocin administration improves adverse cardiovascular events during the recurrent nocturnal apneas in patients with OSA. This project will lay the groundwork and provide preliminary data to obtain NIH funding to test this important hypotheses more thoroughly and in larger clinical trials.

This study will explore if intranasal oxytocin has any positive cardiovascular benefits in patients with sleep apnea.

Detailed description:
Cohort A: 8 Subjects

8 Subjects that have recently undergone either a standard "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography or an "at home" PSG test and have been diagnosed with OSA will be recruited into the research study where we will assess the beneficial effects of oxytocin treatment.

These 8 subjects will undergo an "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography that would be identical to the one they had for standard of care medical guidelines if they were diagnosed with OSA "in the sleep-lab". This research polysomnography should be performed within 4 weeks of their OSA diagnosis PSG.

These 8 subjects will undergo another "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography that is identical to the one that they had for standard of care to diagnose OSA. Within one hour prior to the research polysomnography the subjects will be given oxytocin (40 IU) intranasally. Outcome measures will be assessed.

Arms:
arm 1: These 8 subjects will undergo an "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography that would be identical to the one they had for standard of care medical guidelines if they were diagnosed with OSA "in the sleep-lab". arm 2: These subjects will undergo another "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography that is identical to the one that they had for standard of care to diagnose OSA. Within one hour prior to the research polysomnography the subjects will be given oxytocin (40 IU) intranasally. Outcome measures will be assessed.

Interventions: intervention 1: Oxytocin
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: To test that intranasal oxytocin administration blunts the deleterious hypoxia/hypercapnia induced changes in heart rate that occur during nocturnal apnea in patients with OSA, we will examine the changes in heart rate in a group of patients that have recently been diagnosed with OSA. 8 subjects that have recently undergone a standard "in the sleep-lab" diagnostic polysomnography (per standard of care medical guidelines, and not for research purposes) and have been diagnosed with OSA will be recruited into a study to assess the beneficial effects of oxytocin treatment.

Protocol document: