Clinical applicability of the prosocial effects of oxytocin and inter-/intrapersonal models of social dysfunction: a methodological review
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1
The University of Tokyo, History and Philosophy of Science, Japan
Recent studies indicate that the prosocial effects of oxytocin are context-dependent, although this context-dependency is low in cases of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, the clinical implications of these effects remain unclear. Given this background, I applied a philosophy-of-psychiatry approach to address outstanding issues related to studying the prosocial effects of oxytocin in ASDs. I reviewed the literature in order to determine appropriate application and development of a diagnostic paradigm that could be used to inform a standardized experimental design for future studies. According to the DSM-IV and DSM-5, the core symptoms of ASD are related to sociocommunication deficits. My literature review showed that most studies addressing the prosocial effects of oxytocin have been based on social cognition paradigms (e.g., facial expression cognition), and have thus evaluated social cognition task performance (e.g., reaction time adjustment). However, the dysfunction in question as outlined in the DSM scheme is of an interactive (interpersonal) rather than a reactive (intrapersonal) nature. Therefore, such studies should focus not only on the magnitude of the beneficial effects of oxytocin on task performance (and correlated neural activities), but also on the reduction in impairment severity in interpersonal-based assessments. However, such measures are rarely considered in studies that assess the clinical applicability of oxytocin. Based on this DSM scheme, experiments aimed at evaluating oxytocin's positive effects on the prosocial deficits in question should be designed to analyse the clinical significance of observed interpersonal effects. Furthermore, I suggest that the interpersonal model of social dysfunction should be reconsidered, and more effort should be focused on developing intrapersonal models.
Keywords:
Oxytocin,
social cognition,
Autism Spectrum Disorder,
Social dysfunction,
Prosocial effects,
Pharmacologic intervention
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Methods Development
Citation:
Kitano
Y
(2015). Clinical applicability of the prosocial effects of oxytocin and inter-/intrapersonal models of social dysfunction: a methodological review.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00302
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
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Correspondence:
Ms. Yasuko Kitano, The University of Tokyo, History and Philosophy of Science, Tokyo, Japan, yasukos@sannet.ne.jp