70172
document
Oxytocin increases eye contact during a real-time , naturalistic social interaction in males with and without autism . Autism spectrum conditions ( autism ) affect ~1 % of the population and are characterized by deficits in social communication . Oxytocin has been widely reported to affect social-communicative function and its neural underpinnings . Here we report the first evidence that intranasal oxytocin administration improves a core problem that individuals with autism have in using eye contact appropriately in real-world social settings . A randomized double-blind , placebo-controlled , within-subjects design is used to examine how intranasal administration of 24 IU of oxytocin affects gaze behavior for 32 adult males with autism and 34 controls in a real-time interaction with a researcher . This interactive paradigm bypasses many of the limitations encountered with conventional static or computer-based stimuli . Eye movements are recorded using eye tracking , providing an objective measurement of looking patterns . The measure is shown to be sensitive to the reduced eye contact commonly reported in autism , with the autism group spending less time looking to the eye region of the face than controls . Oxytocin administration selectively enhanced gaze to the eyes in both the autism and control groups ( transformed mean eye-fixation difference per second=0.082 ; 95 % CI:0.025-0.14 , P=0.006 ) . Within the autism group , oxytocin has the most effect on fixation duration in individuals with impaired levels of eye contact at baseline ( Cohen 's d=0.86 ) . These findings demonstrate that the potential benefits of oxytocin in autism extend to a real-time interaction , providing evidence of a therapeutic effect in a key aspect of social communication .
70173
Intervention_Pharmacological
Oxytocin
70174
Intervention_Pharmacological
Oxytocin
70175
Intervention_Pharmacological
intranasal oxytocin
70176
Intervention_Control
placebo-controlled
70177
Participant_Sex
males
70178
Participant_Condition
with and without autism
70179
Participant_Condition
Autism spectrum conditions ( autism )
70180
Participant_Condition
individuals with autism
70181
Participant_Sample-size
32
70182
Participant_Sex
males
70183
Participant_Condition
autism