Psychopharmacology
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The effect of intranasal oxytocin treatment on conditioned fear extinction and recall in a healthy human sample.
To 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. ⋯ The 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.