Oxytocin and Social Cognition in Frontotemporal Dementia

Lawson Health Research Institute

Status

Completed

Conditions

Frontotemporal Dementia

Pick's Disease

Treatments

Drug: intranasal oxytocin

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01002300

15398

R-08-395

Details and patient eligibility

About

Investigations into the components of cognition damaged in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) demonstrate that patients with FTD show deficits in facial and verbal expression recognition, lack insight into what others think or might do (theory of mind skills), and in decision making tasks requiring processing of positive versus negative feedback. These cognitive functions are thought to be critical for appropriate social behavioural regulation (Blair, 2003). Recent studies in animal models and humans suggest that the neuropeptide oxytocin is an important mediator of social behavior and that oxytocin may facilitate emotion recognition, theory of mind processing, and prosocial behaviors (Donaldson and Young, 2008). Together, these findings suggest that upregulation of oxytocin dependent mechanisms of social and emotional cognition may be a valuable treatment approach in patients with FTD. The aim of this study is to determine how administration of intranasal oxytocin to patients with frontotemporal dementia affects behavior and processing of specific types of social and emotional information.The investigators' hypothesis is that oxytocin administration will improve emotional and social cognitive deficits in patients with FTD, resulting in improved decision making and behaviour.

Enrollment

24 patients

Sex

All

Ages

30 to 80 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Clinical diagnosis of probable Frontotemporal Dementia or Pick's disease
Caregiver available to participate in all study visits

Exclusion criteria

Severe language or memory deficits that preclude completion of the cognitive tasks
Females who are pregnant or breastfeeding (a pregnancy test will be done on females who have not completed menopause)
Uncontrolled hypertension
Bradycardia (rate <50 bpm) or tachycardia (rate > 100 bpm)
Current use of prostaglandins
Use of any investigational or experimental drug or device within the last 60 days prior to screening or within 5 half-lives of the experimental drug , whichever is longer