Trial reportHormones and behavior2017
Intranasal oxytocin, but not vasopressin, augments neural responses to toddlers in human fathers.
Trial report in Hormones and behavior, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 103 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Role of Oxytocin in Antisocial Personality Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Literature.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Pooled it
- Oxytocin, but not vasopressin, decreases willingness to harm others by promoting moral emotions of guilt and shame.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Oxytocinergic modulation of speech production-a double-blind placebo-controlled fMRI study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Review
- Review
- Sex matters: The impact of oxytocin on healthy conditions and psychiatric disorders.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Oxytocin and Women Postpartum Depression: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2023Review
- Is paternal oxytocin an oxymoron? Oxytocin, vasopressin, testosterone, oestradiol and cortisol in emerging fatherhood.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Assessment of Reward-Related Brain Function After a Single Dose of Oxytocin in Autism: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2022Article
- The Neural Basis of Human Fatherhood: A Unique Biocultural Perspective on Plasticity of Brain and Behavior.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2022Review
- Advancing the RDoC initiative through the assessment of caregiver social processes.Development and psychopathology · 2021Article
- The neural correlates of grandmaternal caregiving.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Discussions and perspectives regarding oxytocin as a biomarker in human investigations.Heliyon · 2021Review
- Paraventricular Nucleus Oxytocin Subsystems Promote Active Paternal Behaviors in Mandarin Voles.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
- Exploring the hormonal and neural correlates of paternal protective behavior to their infants.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- Plasticity of the paternal brain: Effects of fatherhood on neural structure and function.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Review
- The Paternal Brain in Action: A Review of Human Fathers' fMRI Brain Responses to Child-Related Stimuli.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Mother brain is wired for social moments.eLife · 2021Article
- Is Oxytocin "Nature's Medicine"?Pharmacological reviews · 2020Review
- Links Between the Neurobiology of Oxytocin and Human Musicality.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
This study investigates paternal brain function with the hope of better understanding the neural basis for variation in caregiving involvement among men. The neuropeptides oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) are implicated in paternal caregiving in humans and other species. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject pharmaco-functional MRI experiment, we randomized 30 fathers of 1-2year old children to receive either 24IU intranasal OT before one scan and placebo before the other scan (n=15) or 20IU intranasal AVP before one scan and placebo before the other scan (n=15). Brain function was measured with fMRI as the fathers viewed pictures of their children, unknown children and unknown adults, and as they listened to unknown infant cry stimuli. Intranasal OT, but not AVP, significantly increased the BOLD fMRI response to viewing pictures of own children within the caudate nucleus, a target of midbrain dopamine projections, as well as the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) and visual cortex, suggesting that intranasal oxytocin augments activation in brain regions involved in reward, empathy and attention in human fathers. OT effects also varied as a function of order of administration such that when OT was given before placebo, it increased activation within several reward-related structures (substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, putamen) more than when it was given after placebo. Neither OT nor AVP had significant main effects on the neural response to cries. Our findings suggest that the hormonal changes associated with the transition to fatherhood are likely to facilitate increased approach motivation and empathy for children, and call for future research that evaluates the potential of OT to normalize deficits in paternal motivation, as might be found among men suffering from post-partum depression.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.