| Social functioning is a core feature of schizophrenia, and it is related to outcome and disease onset. Social cognitive processes underlie social functioning and as such have been a treatment target in schizophrenia; however, psychosocial treatments targeting social cognition are often not available in clinics and there are no current psychopharmacological agents that improve social cognition or social functioning in schizophrenia. Consequently, there has been great interest in oxytocin (OT) as a potential treatment for social cognition in schizophrenia, and as an additive to current psychological approaches. OT stimulates prosocial behavior and antipsychotic-like effects in animals and humans, and there is preliminary evidence supporting OT's role in social cognition in humans. Therefore, the current study explored whether OT can improve social cognition and social functioning in schizophrenia using a six-week, double-blind design. Twenty individuals with schizophrenia were randomized to receive either intranasal OT or a saline placebo solution and completed a battery of social cognitive measures, as well as measures of social functioning, community functioning, neurocognition and psychiatric symptoms. Results showed improvements on self-reported cognitive empathy, deception detection, and global social skills in the OT condition as compared to the PL condition. In addition, post-hoc analyses demonstrated improved identification of intense facial emotions and a reduction in negative symptoms for the OT condition. These preliminary findings indicate OT may help improve certain components of social cognition in schizophrenia. Implications for the treatment of social functioning in schizophrenia and early intervention are discussed. |
