Introduction

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.

Methods

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.

Results

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.

Conclusion

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.

中文翻译：

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初步证据表明催产素不能改善精神分裂症女性的心智化

 介绍

心智化，即推断他人意图和情绪的能力，在精神分裂症中通常会受到损害，并且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男性精神分裂症患者的心智化，但其对女性的影响仍不清楚。鉴于精神分裂症临床表现和催产素系统功能的性别差异，这是一个需要解决的重要差距。

 方法

我们采用随机、安慰剂对照、双盲、交叉设计，测试了单剂量催产素挑战（40 IU）对 26 名精神分裂症女性和 38 名健康对照女性心理化任务表现的影响。我们的目的是使用相同的催产素给药程序和基于表现的评估来复制之前关于催产素对精神分裂症男性心智化影响的研究。我们使用混合效应模型和等价性测试以及贝叶斯分层模型来检查催产素效应。

 结果

与我们之前在男性样本中的发现相反，催产素并没有改善精神分裂症女性样本的心智化。探索性分析表明，较高的抗多巴胺能药物剂量与催产素反应降低相关，这与之前在男性中的研究结果一致。

 结论

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的心理化产生性别特异性影响。将女性纳入未来更大样本的临床研究至关重要，因为在男性中观察到的催产素效应可能不会延伸到患有该疾病的女性。