Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 67, Issue 7, 1 April 2010, Pages 692-694
Biological Psychiatry

Brief Report
Intranasal Oxytocin Improves Emotion Recognition for Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.09.020Get rights and content

Background

A diagnostic hallmark of autism spectrum disorders is a qualitative impairment in social communication and interaction. Deficits in the ability to recognize the emotions of others are believed to contribute to this. There is currently no effective treatment for these problems.

Methods

In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover design, we administered oxytocin nasal spray (18 or 24 IU) or a placebo to 16 male youth aged 12 to 19 who were diagnosed with Autistic or Asperger's Disorder. Participants then completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, a widely used and reliable test of emotion recognition.

Results

In comparison with placebo, oxytocin administration improved performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task. This effect was also shown when analysis was restricted to the younger participants aged 12 to 15 who received the lower dose.

Conclusions

This study provides the first evidence that oxytocin nasal spray improves emotion recognition in young people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Findings suggest the potential of earlier intervention and further evaluation of oxytocin nasal spray as a treatment to improve social communication and interaction in young people with autism spectrum disorders.

Section snippets

Methods and Materials

We recruited 16 male subjects aged between 12 and 19 years (M = 14.88; SD = 2.42) who were diagnosed with a strict DSM-IV criteria of Autistic Disorder or Asperger's Disorder (2). Participants were recruited to the Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, between December 2008 and March 2009 through local advertisement. In a double-blind, crossover, and randomized controlled trial, participants were assigned to receive a single dose of oxytocin and a placebo nasal spray 1 week

Results

Eight participants received oxytocin and eight received the placebo at the first test session. One participant repeatedly fell asleep during testing, a noted symptom for the child, and was excluded from analysis. In comparison with performance under placebo, results indicated that oxytocin improved performance on the RMET for 60% of participants, t(14) = 2.43, p = .03 (two-sided; Figure 1). We then split items into easy and hard items (7). The effect of oxytocin was highly significant for the

Discussion

Our findings reveal that oxytocin nasal spray improves emotion recognition for young people with autism spectrum disorders. Emotion recognition impairments are a core feature of these disorders. It has long been considered to have a heritable base (4) that may be too difficult to effectively treat. We are not aware of any brief intervention that has been shown to improve the ability to perceive or understand emotion in autism spectrum disorders. This study is also the first to apply treatment

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