The Interaction Between Oxytocin and Serotonin

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Healthy

Treatments: Drug: oxytocin nasal spray; Drug: ATD treatment; Drug: oral placebo treatment (placebo-control for ATD); Drug: intranasal placebo treatment (placebo-control for oxytocin)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03577457

SANP-2017-3-ATD

Details and patient eligibility

About

The primary objective of this study is to identify any interaction between oxytocin and serotonin on neural and behavioral activity related to social reward and decision making by a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject, pharmacological fMRI design

Full description

Serotonin and oxytocin have been proved to play an important role in social reward processing and decision making in human. The aim of this study is to determine whether they interact in those essential human behaviors by a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject, pharmacological fMRI design, in which 4 groups of healthy males will be administered with a random combination of nasal oxytocin (24 international units, IU) or placebo and acute tryptophan depletion (ATD, 75.2g) or placebo (a tryptophan-balanced mixture, 78.2g). The social-reward related neural activity and behavior will be assessed by a series of social reward task in and out of fMRI scanner and the decision making will be assessed by reversal learning task, ultimatum game (UG) and loss aversion task. The interaction between serotonin and oxytocin on brain networks will also be tested by resting state.

Enrollment: 100 estimated patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18 to 30 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Healthy subjects without past or current psychiatric or neurological disorders
• Right-handedness

Exclusion criteria

• History of head injury;
• Medical or psychiatric illness.
• High blood pressure, general cardio-vascular alterations
• History of drug or alcohol abuse or addiction.
• Allergy against medications or general strong allergies
• Sleep disorders.
• Visual or motor impairments

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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100 participants in 4 patient groups, including a placebo group

male oxytocin and ATD group

Experimental group

Description:

male subjects receiving oxytocin and ATD treatment

Treatment:

Drug: ATD treatment

Drug: oxytocin nasal spray

male oxytocin and placebo group

Experimental group

Description:

male subjects receiving oxytocin and ATD-placebo treatment

Treatment:

Drug: oral placebo treatment (placebo-control for ATD)

Drug: oxytocin nasal spray

male placebo and ATD group

Experimental group

Description:

male subjects receiving oxytocin placebo and ATD treatment

Treatment:

Drug: ATD treatment

Drug: intranasal placebo treatment (placebo-control for oxytocin)

male placebo group

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

male subjects receiving oxytocin placebo and ATD placebo treatment

Treatment:

Drug: oral placebo treatment (placebo-control for ATD)

Drug: intranasal placebo treatment (placebo-control for oxytocin)