University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America; San Francisco Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.
University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States of America; San Francisco Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, United States of America; Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States of America.
Horm Behav. 2021 Feb;128:104915. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2020.104915. Epub 2020 Dec 28.
Mentalizing, the ability to infer other people's intentions and emotions, is commonly impaired in schizophrenia and may represent an endophenotype. The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to improve mentalizing in men with schizophrenia, but its effects in women remain unclear. Given sex differences in the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia and oxytocin system function, this is an important gap to address.
We tested the effects of a single-dose oxytocin challenge (40 IU) on mentalizing task performance among 26 women with schizophrenia and 38 healthy control women using a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover design. We aimed to replicate our prior study of oxytocin effects on mentalizing in men with schizophrenia, using the same oxytocin administration procedures and performance-based assessments. We used mixed-effects models and equivalence testing as well as Bayesian hierarchical models to examine oxytocin effects.
In contrast to our previous finding in a male sample, oxytocin did not improve mentalizing in this sample of women with schizophrenia. Exploratory analyses showed that higher anti-dopaminergic medication dosage was associated with a decreased response to oxytocin, consistent with previous findings in men.
These findings provide preliminary evidence that exogenous oxytocin administration may have sex-specific effects on mentalizing in schizophrenia. Inclusion of women in future clinical studies with larger samples is critical, as oxytocin effects observed in men may not extend to women with the disorder.
心理化能力，即推断他人意图和情绪的能力，在精神分裂症中普遍受损，可能代表一种内表型。下丘脑神经肽催产素已被证明可以改善精神分裂症男性的心理化能力，但在女性中的作用尚不清楚。鉴于精神分裂症的临床表现和催产素系统功能存在性别差异，这是一个需要解决的重要差距。
我们采用随机、安慰剂对照、双盲、交叉设计，测试了 26 名女性精神分裂症患者和 38 名健康对照女性单次接受 40IU 催产素挑战对心理化任务表现的影响。我们旨在复制我们之前对男性精神分裂症患者催产素对心理化影响的研究，使用相同的催产素给药程序和基于表现的评估。我们使用混合效应模型和等效性检验以及贝叶斯层次模型来检查催产素的作用。
与我们之前在男性样本中的发现相反，催产素并没有改善这组女性精神分裂症患者的心理化能力。探索性分析表明，较高的抗多巴胺能药物剂量与对催产素的反应降低有关，这与之前在男性中的发现一致。
这些发现提供了初步证据，表明外源性催产素给药可能对精神分裂症中的心理化具有性别特异性影响。未来的临床研究纳入更大的女性样本至关重要，因为在男性中观察到的催产素作用可能不适用于患有该疾病的女性。
