The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of an acute administration of intranasal oxytocin, relative to placebo, on social cognitive impairments among individuals with body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, compared to healthy controls.
Despite the development of efficacious pharmacologic and psychological treatments body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), treatment outcome data suggest that there is still considerable room for improvement. A closer examination of biological mechanisms underlying psychopathology may help uncover mechanisms to target during intervention and thereby provide a novel approach to treatment. Given that the neuropeptide, oxytocin, is involved in the regulation of a variety of social and cognitive dimensions, including emotion recognition and social attentional processing, there are direct implications regarding its role in the development of such deficits among individuals with BDD. The current study therefore aims to investigate the effect of oxytocin administration on social cognitive impairments in BDD and a related disorder, OCD. Twenty treatment-seeking male and female outpatients with BDD, 20 individuals with OCD, and 20 healthy participants will be assigned to receive an oxytocin and placebo nasal spray one week apart. During each visit, subjects will complete a series of tasks to measure emotion recognition, attentional biases, interpretive biases, and trust behavior. Importantly, these findings may show that a single administration of oxytocin may alter social cognitive processes thought to maintain BDD, and ultimately inform treatments for BDD.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
DOUBLE
Enrollment
41
Oxytocin nasal sprays will be self-administered in the presence of a study nurse. The dose is 24 IU (3 puffs per nostril, 4 IU per puff) of Syntocinon nasal spray.
Placebo nasal sprays will be self-administered in the presence of a study nurse. The sprays will contain all of the same ingredients as the Syntocinon spray minus the active oxytocin ingredient.
Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Emotion Recognition Questionnaire
This questionnaire includes 48 items for 2 conditions- a self-referent and other-referent condition. Scores are reported for each condition (self-referent or other-referent) reflecting the number of correct responses. Scores range from 0 (least accurate) to 24 (most accurate) for each condition of the questionnaire.
Time frame: 45 minutes post nasal spray administration
Interpretation Questionnaire
This questionnaire includes 33 ambiguous scenarios, representing 3 conditions: BDD threat scenarios, social anxiety threat scenarios, and general threat scenarios. Each item involves 3 possible thoughts that may come to mind in the scenarios which reflect positive, negative, and neutral interpretations. Participants will be asked to rate the likelihood of having each of the thoughts on a scale of 0 (very unlikely) to 4 (very likely). Total scores are reported for negative threat interpretations for each of the 3 conditions (BDD threat, social anxiety threat, general threat), with scores ranging from 0 (very unlikely) to 44 (very likely).
Time frame: At least 45 minutes post nasal spray administration
Engagement Towards and Disengagement From Threat Cues in a Spatial Cueing Task
The outcome measures are response latencies (in milliseconds) on engagement and disengagement trials for disgust, happy, and neutral cue types. Longer response latencies reflect more sustained attention.
Time frame: At least 45 minutes post nasal spray administration
Amount of Initial Monetary Transfer During Trust Game
Participants will have the decision of sending between 0 to 10 game dollars to another participant, without any expectation of monetary return. This initial investment amount will serve as a measure of trust, with a transfer of 0 game dollars indicating no trust and a transfer of 10 game dollars indicating maximum trust.
Time frame: At least 45 minutes post nasal spray administration
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