Oxytocin's Role in Social Functioning and Empathy in Schizophrenia Investigated via Pharmaco-imaging

Schizophrenia severely impacts veterans, causing debilitating social functioning deficits like low motivation, difficulty expressing emotions, and impaired empathy. Current antipsychotics primarily target positive symptoms, leaving these crucial social impairments unaddressed, which strongly predict poor quality of life and functional outcomes. Oxytocin, a brain peptide, is vital for social behavior, moderating affiliation, stress, and learning. This study explores oxytocin as a novel treatment for these social deficits, aiming to understand its neurobiological effects on the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system and predict treatment responders.

This Phase 1 study (NCT01394471) enrolled 68 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder to investigate oxytocin's effect on empathy and social functioning. Participants received intranasal oxytocin administration. The study utilized a pharmaco-imaging approach to examine changes in brain activation, specifically focusing on oxytocin's influence on the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system. Primary endpoints included changes in empathy and social functioning, alongside neurobiological markers of brain activation, to predict which individuals may benefit from oxytocin treatment.