Trial reportPsychopharmacology2013
The effect of intranasal oxytocin treatment on conditioned fear extinction and recall in a healthy human sample.
Trial report in Psychopharmacology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03376139 (Zonisamide as a New Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Co-Occurring Alcohol Use Disorder), which is not on this map. Cited by 66 papers.
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.
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.
Zonisamide as a New Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Co-Occurring Alcohol Use Disorder
Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 137 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of intranasal oxytocin on fear extinction learning.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Actigraphy assessment of motor activity and sleep in patients with alcohol withdrawal syndrome and the effects of intranasal oxytocin.PloS one · 2020Trial
- Effects of oxytocin on stress reactivity and craving in veterans with co-occurring PTSD and alcohol use disorder.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2019Trial
- Post-retrieval oxytocin facilitates next day extinction of threat memory in humans.Psychopharmacology · 2019Trial
- Augmenting Prolonged Exposure therapy for PTSD with intranasal oxytocin: A randomized, placebo-controlled pilot trial.Journal of psychiatric research · 2018Trial
- Oxytocin differentially modulates pavlovian cue and context fear acquisition.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2017Trial
- Trial
- Intranasal Oxytocin Administration Dampens Amygdala Reactivity towards Emotional Faces in Male and Female PTSD Patients.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2016Trial
- Intranasal Oxytocin Affects Amygdala Functional Connectivity after Trauma Script-Driven Imagery in Distressed Recently Trauma-Exposed Individuals.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2016Trial
- Effects of intranasal oxytocin on amygdala reactivity to emotional faces in recently trauma-exposed individuals.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2016Trial
- Oxytocin affects the connectivity of the precuneus and the amygdala: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled neuroimaging trial.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Oxytocin attenuates fear learning via enhancing somatostatin interneuron-mediated local GABAergic inhibition in the prelimbic cortex.Science advances · 2026Article
- A systematic review of spontaneous recovery in human fear conditioning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- A prospective study of pre-trauma fear learning and extinction as risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Oxytocin reduces asymmetries in dominance relationships between pairs of captive female lions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Review
- Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A State-of-the-art Review.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Review
- Beta spectral power during sleep is associated with impaired recall of extinguished fear.Sleep · 2023Article
- COPE and oxytocin for the treatment of co-occurring PTSD and alcohol use disorder: Design and methodology of a randomized controlled trial in U.S. military veterans.Contemporary clinical trials · 2023Article
- Protocol for a randomized controlled study examining the role of rapid eye movement sleep in fear-related mechanisms: rapid eye movement fragmentation and fear inhibition in adults with insomnia disorders before and after cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2023Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleTo improve outcomes for patients undergoing extinction-based therapies (e.g., exposure therapy) for anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there has been interest in identifying pharmaceutical compounds that might facilitate fear extinction learning and recall. Oxytocin (OT) is a mammalian neuropeptide that modulates activation of fear extinction-based neural circuits and fear responses. Little is known, however, about the effects of OT treatment on conditioned fear responding and extinction in humans.
objectivesThe purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of OT in a fear-potentiated startle task of fear conditioning and extinction.
methodsA double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 44 healthy human participants was conducted. Participants underwent a conditioned fear acquisition procedure, after which they were randomized to treatment group and delivered OT (24 IU) or placebo via intranasal (IN) spray. Forty-five minutes after treatment, participants underwent extinction training. Twenty-four hours later, subjects were tested for extinction recall.
resultsRelative to placebo, the OT group showed increased fear-potentiated startle responding during the earliest stage of extinction training relative to placebo; however, all treatment groups showed the same level of reduced responding by the end of extinction training. Twenty-four hours later, the OT group showed significantly higher recall of extinction relative to placebo.
conclusionsThe current study provides preliminary evidence that OT may facilitate fear extinction recall in humans. These results support further study of OT as a potential adjunctive treatment for extinction-based therapies in fear-related disorders.
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Registered trials
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.