Intranasal Oxytocin in Antiosocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy (OXYASP)

King's College London

Status: Completed

Conditions: Antisocial Personality Disorder

Treatments: Other: Placebo spray; Drug: Oxytocin nasal spray

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05383300

15/LO/1086

Details and patient eligibility

About

A pharmacoimaging study of oxytcoin in antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy

Full description

Using a double-blinded, placebo controlled design, we explored similarities and differences in i) an important component of empathic processing (neural response to facial emotional expressions) and ii) decision-making in violent men with ASPD+/-Psychopathy, compared to healthy non-offenders (NO; n= 21 across studies), with placebo and after acute application of intranasal oxytocin, using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

Enrollment: 72 patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18 to 60 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Male
• Aged 18-60
• IQ greater than 70 as defined by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI-II).

Violent offenders:

Offenders with convictions for violent crimes (murder, rape, attempted murder, grievous and actual bodily harm) who met DSM-5 criteria for antisocial personality disorder (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Personality Disorders (SCID-5 PD) Psychopathy or non-psychopathy subgroup based on Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R; (Hare, 2003))- score of 25 as the threshold for psychopathy in this English population.

Healthy non-offenders:

Non-offenders with no personality disorder

Exclusion criteria

• history of major mental disorders (bipolar 1, bipolar 2, major depression or psychotic disorders)
• self-reported neurological disorders
• head injury resulting in loss of consciousness for 1 hour or longer
• severe visual or hearing impairments
• contraindications to MRI

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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72 participants in 3 patient groups

Violent offenders with psychopathy

Other group

Description:

Violent offenders with psychopathy

Treatment:

Drug: Oxytocin nasal spray

Other: Placebo spray

Violent offenders without psychopathy

Other group

Description:

Violent offenders without psychopathy

Treatment:

Drug: Oxytocin nasal spray

Other: Placebo spray

Healthy non-offenders

Other group

Description:

Healthy non-offenders

Treatment:

Drug: Oxytocin nasal spray

Other: Placebo spray