Temporal profile of intranasal oxytocin in the human autonomic nervous system at rest: An electrocardiography and pupillometry study.

J Psychopharmacol

Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.

Published: June 2023

AI Article Synopsis

  • - The study investigates how intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) affects the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in 20 male participants, focusing on changes in their heart rate variability and pupillary activity over time after administration.
  • - Researchers used a double-blind, placebo-controlled method to measure both the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic nervous system activities through different indicators during rest periods at various time intervals (15-100 minutes post-OT).
  • - Results indicated that IN-OT decreased pupillary unrest and possibly increased heart rate variability, suggesting that oxytocin may play a role in regulating PNS activity and could enhance alertness and social behaviors.

Article Abstract

Background: Human social behavior is modulated by oxytocin (OT). Intranasal administration of OT (IN-OT) is a noninvasive route shown to elicit changes in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity; however, IN-OT's effect on the temporal profile of ANS activity at rest is yet to be described.

Aims: We aimed to describe the temporal profile of IN-OT at six 10-min time windows from 15- to 100-min post-administration in 20 male participants at rest while continuously recording their pupillary in an eyes-open condition and cardiac activity in eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions.

Methods: We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design study where we extracted two proxies of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity: high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) and pupillary unrest index (PUI); and a proxy of sympathetic nervous system activity: sample entropy of the pupillary unrest.

Results: In the eyes-open condition, we found an effect of IN-OT on the proxies of PNS activity: decreased PUI in the three-time windows post-administration spanning 65-100 min, and as an exploratory finding, an increased HF-HRV in the 80-85 min time window.

Conclusions: We suggest there is a role of OT in PNS regulation that may be consistent with OT's currently theorized role in the facilitation of alertness and approach behavior.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10291383PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02698811231158233DOI Listing

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