Evidence map›Paper›PMID 20720535›Full record

Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2010

Oxytocin attenuates amygdala reactivity to fear in generalized social anxiety disorder.

Izelle Labuschagne, K Luan Phan, Amanda Wood, Mike Angstadt, Phyllis Chua, Markus Heinrichs, Julie C Stout, Pradeep J Nathan

Open access · greenAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 223 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
223citing papers in PubMed, 6 pooled it
37.3field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

223 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 548 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Pooled it
  5. Pooled it
  6. Pooled it
  7. Post-encoding administration of oxytocin selectively enhances memory consolidation of male faces in females.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Trial
  8. Trial
  9. Trial
  10. Trial
  11. Oxytocin effects on amygdala reactivity to angry faces in males and females with antisocial personality disorder.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023
    Trial
  12. Trial
  13. Oxytocin attenuates neural response to emotional faces in social drinkers: an fMRI study.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2021
    Trial
  14. Trial
  15. Trial
  16. Trial
  17. Trial
  18. Trial
  19. Oxytocin induces long-lasting adaptations within amygdala circuitry in autism: a treatment-mechanism study with randomized placebo-controlled design.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020
    Trial
  20. Trial

163 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.

Izelle LabuschagneSchool of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
K Luan Phan
Amanda Wood
Mike Angstadt
Phyllis Chua
Markus Heinrichs
Julie C Stout
Pradeep J Nathan
Monash University · AUUniversity of Michigan–Ann Arbor · USMurdoch Children's Research Institute · AUUniversity of Freiburg · DE

Funding

Neuro-Genetic Markers SSRI Treatment Social AnxietyK23MH076198 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · PI PHAN, K. LUAN · 2006 to 2010
$754k
NIMH NIH HHS K23 MH076198NIMH NIH HHS MH076198
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Patients with generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD) exhibit heightened activation of the amygdala in response to social cues conveying threat (eg, fearful/angry faces). The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) decreases anxiety and stress, facilitates social encounters, and attenuates amygdala reactivity to threatening faces in healthy subjects. The goal of this study was to examine the effects of OXT on fear-related amygdala reactivity in GSAD and matched healthy control (CON) subjects. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study utilizing a double-blind placebo-controlled within-subjects design, we measured amygdala activation to an emotional face matching task of fearful, angry, and happy faces following acute intranasal administration of OXT (24 IU or 40.32 μg) and placebo in 18 GSAD and 18 CON subjects. Both the CON and GSAD groups activated bilateral amygdala to all emotional faces during placebo, with the GSAD group exhibiting hyperactivity specifically to fearful faces in bilateral amygdala compared with the CON group. OXT had no effect on amygdala activity to emotional faces in the CON group, but attenuated the heightened amygdala reactivity to fearful faces in the GSAD group, such that the hyperactivity observed during the placebo session was no longer evident following OXT (ie, normalization). These findings suggest that OXT has a specific effect on fear-related amygdala activity, particularly when the amygdala is hyperactive, such as in GSAD, thereby providing a brain-based mechanism of the impact of OXT in modulating the exaggerated processing of social signals of threat in patients with pathological anxiety.

Indexed as

Administration, IntranasalAdultAmygdalaAnxiety DisordersBrain MappingDouble-Blind MethodFacial ExpressionFearHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingMaleMiddle AgedOxytocinPlacebosPsychomotor PerformanceOxytocinPlacebos

Identifiers

PMID20720535
PMCPMC3055328
OpenAlexW2116280488

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.