In nulliparous women, intranasal oxytocin enhanced ventral tegmental area activation in response to cues signaling social reward or social punishment compared with placebo.
In plain wordsIn women who had not given birth, nasal oxytocin raised activity in a brain reward area when they saw friendly or angry faces, versus placebo.
- Peptide
- Oxytocin
- Outcome
- IncreaseVTA activation in response to social reward or punishment cues
- Study
n = 28
- Comparator
- Placebo
- Outcome group
- Social behavior and cognition · Nervous system and cognition
- Studied dose
- Dose not stated · intranasalAs given in this study (human).
Source sentences
Oxytocin significantly enhanced VTA activation in response to cues signaling social reward (friendly face) or social punishment (angry face).
2 context sentences(design, population, supporting numbers)
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a social incentive delay task to test the hypothesis that oxytocin modulates the neural processing of socially relevant cues in the VTA, hereby facilitating behavioral response.
Twenty-eight nulliparous women (not taking any hormones) received intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a double-blind randomized clinical trial with a parallel-group design.