Oxytocin as Adjunctive Treatment of Schizophrenia

Summary

The focus of the current project is to advance our understanding of the effects of oxytocin (OT) on components of social cognition in schizophrenia (SCZ). Despite the rapid increase in our understanding of the role of OT in rodent models of social behavior and an explosion of interest in the prosocial effects of OT in healthy controls, little work has been done to dissect the potential effects of OT on SCZ subjects with social deficits. Social deficits are a crucial aspect of the functional impairments that limit the rehabilitation of patients with SCZ. In particular, SCZ patients with enduring negative symptoms (deficit syndrome, Kirkpatrick et al. 1989) have prominent social deficits as a core feature of this subtype of the illness. Our currently available medications do very little to improve these social deficits. Hence it is of utmost public health importance to address the knowledge gap regarding the potential of OT to improve social function in this illness. Intact social function depends on the competent functioning of several cognitive domains that subserve perception of social cues and the generation of motivated social behavior. We propose to conduct a pharmacological challenge study of OT vs. placebo administration to study the effects of OT on specific components of social cognition in male deficit syndrome SCZ subjects. Primary Hypothesis: Intranasal OT will improve social cognition in subjects with deficit syndrome SCZ.

Timeline

Start

2013-03

Primary completion

2017-03-15

Completion

2017-03-15

Publications

• Background Young LJ, Murphy Young AZ, Hammock EA. Anatomy and neurochemistry of the pair bond. J Comp Neurol. 2005 Dec 5;493(1):51-7. doi: 10.1002/cne.20771.
• Background Andari E, Duhamel JR, Zalla T, Herbrecht E, Leboyer M, Sirigu A. Promoting social behavior with oxytocin in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Mar 2;107(9):4389-94. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0910249107. Epub 2010 Feb 16.
• Background Guastella AJ, Mitchell PB, Dadds MR. Oxytocin increases gaze to the eye region of human faces. Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Jan 1;63(1):3-5. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2007.06.026. Epub 2007 Sep 21.
• Background Mueser KT, Doonan R, Penn DL, Blanchard JJ, Bellack AS, Nishith P, DeLeon J. Emotion recognition and social competence in chronic schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol. 1996 May;105(2):271-5. doi: 10.1037//0021-843x.105.2.271.
• Andari E, Massa NM, Fargotstein MD, Taylor NB, Halverson DM, Owens AV, Currin DL, Bhattacharya A, Gitman D, Cuthbert BC, Young LJ, Duncan EJ. Effects of Oxytocin on Emotion Recognition in Schizophrenia: A Randomized Double-Blind Pilot Study. J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2021 Mar-Apr 01;41(2):103-113. doi: 10.1097/JCP.0000000000001367.

Drugs

Indications