Human contact helps
The researchers carried out two independent studies. The first involved 48 participants, 25 per cent of whom reported mild to severe depressive symptoms. They were scheduled for two lab visits, one week apart. On the first visit, they received a dose of oxytocin or placebo. Sitting alone at a computer, participants were then shown 78 positive, negative or neutral cue words and asked to recall memories. Participants then rated how positive and negative the memories were, as well as their vividness. This procedure was repeated on the second visit, only with the opposite compound being administered prior to testing.
The researchers write that “persons with higher depression scores reported memories that were more negatively valenced following intranasal oxytocin administration compared to placebo during a computer administration” of the memory tests.
In the second study, a group of 63 participants was administered similar cue words over two sessions, only this time some were presented by a human experimenter while others were presented by computer in a room alone. In this case, participants who were in the presence of the experimenter reported more vivid memories following oxytocin, but those who were administered the test by a computer did not.
Meanwhile, just like the first study, participants with high depression scores who were exposed to oxytocin reported more negative memories when the test was administered by a computer, in isolation. However, this was absent in those who were administered the test by a researcher.
Hopeful and cautious
“The key point of this paper is, when it comes to oxytocin, context matters,” adds Wong. “It is not a one-drug-fits-all situation. We need to be very careful about the context in which we administer oxytocin.”
Oxytocin’s clinical benefits might depend on using the drug in very select situations. Ellenbogen explains that psychotherapy might be the perfect context to administer oxytocin, in that well-trained psychotherapists provide a supportive, empathic, and non-judgemental environment.
“It is something of a cautionary tale,” he says. “Oxytocin has the potential to greatly benefit people in certain controlled contexts, but there are risks in using it indiscriminately.”
Read the cited paper: Depressive symptoms and social context modulate oxytocin’s effect on negative memory recall