NCT02394054

Vasopressin and the Social Brain

Vasopressin's Effect on Behavior and Neural Activity During Social Cognition Tasks

• Status: Completed
• Phase: EARLY_Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 84 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 30 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

It has long been established that interpersonal relationships can have a profound impact on health and well-being. Yet, the investigators are still learning about the complex biological processes that contribute to positive social interactions and the ability to develop and maintain social relationships. Recent research has begun to focus on vasopressin, a neuropeptide that is naturally produced in the hypothalamus, because administration of this neuropeptide has been associated with empathy, cooperation, memory of social stimuli (e.g., faces), and brain activity in neural regions associated with social and emotional processes. To date, several aspects of vasopressin's effects on social behavior have been unexplored. As such, the overarching goal of this project is to examine the effects of intranasal vasopressin on several tasks involving learning and social processes. In addition, the investigators will explore associated neural activity through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results from the study will inform our understanding of the neurobiology of socioemotional processes. The investigators hypothesize that compared to placebo, vasopressin will improve deception detection, increase empathy and altruism, enhance responses to photo stimuli of primary caregivers, and improve learning when the subject has a prosocial goal of teaching another person. These effects will manifest in behavioral and neural activity. It is also hypothesized that main effects will not be found for vasopressin, but rather, analyses of relevant moderators will elucidate these findings.

Conditions

• Social Psychology

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Intranasal vasopressin	Through the use of 1oz bottles attached with metered nasal pumps (1 puff = .1ml), participants will self-administer 20 IU vasopressin (American Regent Pharmaceuticals). 5 puffs per nostril (1 puff = 2 IU vasopressin).
DRUG	Intranasal placebo	Through the use of 1oz bottles attached with metered nasal pumps (1 puff = .1ml), participants will self-administer 5 puffs per nostril. Placebo consists of: 2 mls Glycerine and 3 mls purified water (methylparaben and propylparaben mixed according to purified water formula) for a total of 5 ml, which will be filtered with a 5mu filter.

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-01-01
• Primary completion: 2016-07-01
• Completion: 2016-07-01
• First posted: 2015-03-20
• Last updated: 2017-08-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States