NCT00914953

Oxytocin and Social Behavior Over the Lifespan

Oxytocin and Social Behavior Over the Lifespan: Interventional Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: EARLY_Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 41 (actual)
• Sponsor: Claremont Graduate University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study will investigate if intranasal oxytocin (a hormone naturally produced in the body) promotes motivation for, and engagement in, social activities in older adults.

Detailed description

Using a double-blind and placebo controlled design, this study seeks to determine if a short course of exogenous oxytocin (OT) will induce changes in social activities in residentially housed older adults (OAs) during a 10-day treatment period, and after it ends. Because OT is associated with peri-reproductive behaviors, OT release in OAs is expected to be attenuated relative to younger adults. If OT release is low in OAs as we hypothesize, augmenting OT may increase their desire for social interactions, increase the frequency of participation in social activities and augment the number of and quality of social ties, thereby providing protection against disease, early death, cognitive decline, and depression. Research in rodents suggests that social interactions themselves may change chronic OT levels (Carter \& Keverne, 2002; Carter \& Altemus, 1997), in a positive feedback loop. In order to demonstrate OT as the causal mechanism, we propose to infuse oxytocin and then track the desire for, quantity of, and quality of social activities.

Conditions

• Social Activity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	oxytocin (Pitocin)	40 IU OT intranasally (IN) once-daily for 10 consecutive days

Timeline

• Start date: 2010-02-01
• Primary completion: 2010-12-01
• Completion: 2011-12-01
• First posted: 2009-06-05
• Last updated: 2012-03-02

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States