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Study · Measured the body's own peptide · 2021

1 result

Storytelling increases oxytocin and positive emotions and decreases cortisol and pain in hospitalized children.

Brockington G, Gomes Moreira AP, Buso MS, Gomes da Silva S, Altszyler E, Fischer R, Moll J

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America1 Jun 2021Cited by 27 (Europe PMC)

PMID34031240 (opens in a new tab)PMCIDPMC8179166 (opens in a new tab)DOI10.1073/pnas.2018409118 (opens in a new tab)PepBankPUB-34031240
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Summary

The text of this summary is not shown here, because the article license does not allow reuse. Read it at the source (opens in a new tab)

Text rights: CC BY-NC-ND. Results still quote short attributed sentences.

Results from this study1

No result from this study comes from a test of the peptide.

Natural levels measured1

These results measure the body's own peptide. Nobody was given the peptide. They are not evidence about taking it. They are left out of key results, evidence counts and charts.

  1. 01HumanEndogenous levelNon-randomized trialMechanism

    In hospitalized children, salivary oxytocin rose after a 30-min storytelling intervention compared with an active control.

    In plain wordsIn hospitalized children, the body's own oxytocin in saliva rose after storytelling more than after solving riddles.

    Peptide
    Oxytocin
    Outcome
    IncreaseSalivary oxytocin after storytelling
    Study

    n: not reported in source

    Comparator
    Active control (solving riddles)
    Outcome group
    Endogenous peptide levels · Endocrine and hormones

    Source sentences

    Summary
    Compared with the control group, children in the storytelling group showed a marked increase in oxytocin
    2 context sentences
    Summary · context
    We investigated whether listening to narratives from a storyteller can provide beneficial effects for children admitted to intensive care units.
    Summary · context
    Biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol), pain scores, and psycholinguistic associations were collected immediately before and after storytelling and an active control intervention (solving riddles that also involved social interaction but lacked the immersive narrative aspect).

    This result measures the body's own Oxytocin. Nobody was given the peptide. It is not evidence about taking it.

AI wrote and checked these results. AI can make mistakes, so check important results against the source.

Version history

PepBank keeps every version of the data on this study. Status changes from Retraction Watch, Europe PMC and Crossref are listed with their source.

  1. Version 2Current

    11 Oct 2026, 00:50 UTC

    Study results updated

  2. Version 1

    9 Oct 2026, 02:48 UTC

    First added · source update from Europe PMC

Subjects

Terms as the source lists them.

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