Unextracted plasma oxytocin levels decrease following in-laboratory social exclusion in young adults with a suicide attempt history

doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2019.11.015

Journal of Psychiatric Research

Volume 121, February 2020, Pages 173-181

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2019.11.015 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Suicide attempters, depressed, and healthy controls react differently to in-laboratory social exclusion.
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Suicide attempters showed decreased unextracted oxytocin and no changes in extracted oxytocin.
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Suicide attempters showed no changes in desire for emotional support.
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Depressed and healthy controls showed no changes in oxytocin and increased desire for emotional support.

Abstract

Social exclusion is associated with greater suicide risk and more needs to be known about the biological processes contributing to this association. Oxytocin, a neuropeptide that regulates social interactions, may protect against the negative effects of exclusion by motivating social engagement. Oxytocin levels and desire for social engagement increase when non-psychiatric controls experience acute social exclusion. However, among individuals with borderline personality disorder and chronic depression, oxytocin levels decrease following exclusion. Both of these psychiatric illnesses are associated with high rates of suicidal behavior. No research has examined changes in oxytocin following social exclusion among individuals at risk for suicide. This quasi-experimental study examined differences in oxytocin levels and perceptions of social connectedness following an in-laboratory, acute social exclusion task among (a) individuals with no depression or suicide attempt histories, (b) individuals with current depression symptoms, and (c) individuals with current depression symptoms and suicide attempt histories. Young adults (N = 100) completed self-report measures and provided blood samples before and after an acute social exclusion task (Cyberball). Oxytocin was quantified via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Mixed-design ANCOVAs were used to evaluate changes in unextracted and extracted oxytocin levels, desire for emotional support, thwarted belongingness, and perceived burdensomeness. Among suicide attempters, unextracted oxytocin levels decreased and desire for emotional support did not significantly change following exclusion. Among depressed and healthy controls, desire for emotional support increased and unextracted oxytocin levels did not significantly change. No significant changes in extracted oxytocin levels, thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness emerged. Further research is needed to determine if dysregulated oxytocin-related processes biologically predispose individuals with suicide attempt histories to greater social disconnection and suicide risk.

Section snippets

Participants

We examined a sample of 100 young adults, primarily female (70.0%, n = 70), undergraduate students (96.0%, n = 96) with an average age of 20.2 years (SD = 5.0, range = 18–28; Table 1). Participants were recruited from a public university in the Southeastern U.S. and the surrounding community via flyers and the University's research recruitment website. Students reporting current depression symptoms and/or prior suicide attempt(s) were targeted during recruitment via email. Eligible participants

Preliminary Analyses

Study variable descriptive statistics and correlations between all variables are in Table 2. Thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and desire for emotional support were all significantly correlated at pretest (rs = −0.32-0.64) and posttest (rs = −0.54-0.68) in expected ways. Pretest and posttest unextracted and extracted oxytocin levels were not significantly correlated with any self-reported psychological variables (rs = −0.08-0.14). Using the recommended procedure, we recovered

Discussion

This quasi-experimental study examined biological and psychological responses to social exclusion among young adults with suicide attempt histories. Findings were mixed with several notable results pointing to topics for future research.

First, consistent with hypotheses, among suicide attempters, unextracted oxytocin levels decreased; however, desire for emotional support did not significantly change following social exclusion. In contrast, among non-at-risk controls, desire for emotional

Funding/disclosures

This project was supported in part by the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC), an effort supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs under Award No. (W81XWH-10-2-0181, W81XWH-16-2-0003). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the MSRC, Department of Defense, or the Department of Veterans Affairs. This manuscript was also supported, in part, by a grant from the National

Declaration of competing interest

We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.

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Citation Excerpt :
There is the large controversy in analysing OT via EIA without an extraction step. Previous studies have shown that without extraction, oxytocin measurements are 10–100 times higher than in extracted samples, and samples with and without extraction are unrelated [ [27,31–34]]. Tabak et al. [30] pointed out that the non-extraction process has the following three problems.
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View full text

Unextracted plasma oxytocin levels decrease following in-laboratory social exclusion in young adults with a suicide attempt history

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Preliminary Analyses

Discussion

Funding/disclosures

Declaration of competing interest

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Psychiatry Res.

Psychiatry Res.

Biol. Psychiatry

Prog. Brain Res.

Psychiatry Res. Neuroimaging

Front. Neuroendocrinol.

J. Psychiatr. Res.

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Biol. Psychiatry

Biol. Psychiatry

J. Exp. Soc. Psychol.

Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

Thwarting the need to belong: understanding the interpersonal and inner effects of social exclusion

Soc. Personal. Psychol. Compass

Manual for the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation

Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition (BDI-II)

Proteomics tools reveal startlingly high amounts of oxytocin in plasma and serum

Sci. Rep.

Neurobiology of suicidal behavior. An integration of biological and clinical findings

Arch. Suicide Res.

Routinized assessment of suicide risk in clinical practice: an empirically informed update

J. Clin. Psychol.

Oxytocin is an age-specific circulating hormone that is necessary for muscle maintenance and regeneration

Nat. Commun.

Risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors: A meta-analysis of 50 years of research

Psychol. Bull.

Functional neuroanatomy of grief: an FMRI study

Am. J. Psychiatry

A social exclusion manipulation interacts with acquired capability for suicide to predict self-aggressive behaviors

Arch. Suicide Res.