Intranasal Oxytocin Increases Positive Communication and Reduces Cortisol Levels During Couple Conflict

“OT appears to be the main neurohormone to explain empathy and theory of mind (TOM) [8-14].”

“, 2005) and constructive communication between romantic partners discussing conflictual issues (Ditzen et al., 2009)–—perhaps in part by inhibiting neural systems associated with fear (Baumgartner et al.”

“Firstly, that OT regulates the activation of the stress system (Carter, 1998; Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003); secondly that OT is associated with increased motivation to engage in social”

“, 2008), and OT has been shown to reduce activation of the HPA axis (Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003).”

“Evidence that oxytocin modulates anxiety and fear in animals (McCarthy et al. 1996), and shows anti-stress effects in humans (Ditzen et al. 2009) is compatible with this hypothesis.”

“Previous studies have used 40-IU doses in both humans and rodents (Born et al., 2002; Ditzen et al., 2009; Neumann, Maloumby, Beiderbeck, Lukas, & Landgraf, 2013; Zak, Stanton, & Ahmadi, 2007).”

“cortisol levels, during a couple conflict task (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“A number of research teams have subsequently documented effects of exogenously administrated OXT on a wide spectrum of social behaviors, including trust [14], generosity [15] and pairbonding related phenotypes such as communication and behavior in a conflict discussion between couples [16].”

“, 2010), and interactions with close others (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2008; Ditzen et al., 2008; Feldman, Gordon, Schneiderman, Weisman, & ZagoorySharon, 2010).”

“Administration of oxytocin can improve social interactions and facilitate feelings of attachment in humans [2, 3].”

“…changes in measures of autonomic arousal and mood (MacDonald et al., 2011), increased positive communication during couples’ conflict discussions (Ditzen et al., 2009), and improved recognition and processing of positive facial expressions (di Simplicio et al., 2009; Marsh et al., 2010; Lischke…”

“Studies in humans have demonstrated that intranasal oxytocin increases interpersonal trust (Kosfeld et al. 2005; Baumgartner et al. 2008; Theodoridou et al. 2009) and increases positive communication during couple conflict (Ditzen et al. 2009).”

“…is not just a correlate of well-being, but a direct cause of it, as shown by a number of studies, involving intranasal administration of the neuromodulator (e.g., Ditzen et al., 2009; Van IJzendoorn et al., 2012), which can demonstrably reduce the production of cortisol (Cardoso et al., 2013).”

“This 24-hr urine-sampling method was selected because it is noninvasive, free from the stress and pain of having blood drawn (which may independently affect oxytocin levels; Eliava et al., 2016), and may more accurately reflect participants’ oxytocin levels as they go about their daily life.”

“A downregulation of the HPA-axis function by OXT as observed previously in stress and partner-conflict studies (Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003) was not observed in this study.”

“They have been established to facilitate biologically adaptive social behaviors, such as trust (Kosfeld et al., 2005) positive communication (Ditzen et al., 2009), maternal care (Bielsky et al., 2005; Bosch and Neumann, 2008), and affiliation (Lim et al., 2005; Veenema et al., 2010).”

“…linked to higher plasma OT levels (Grewen et al., 2005; Light et al., 2005), and it has been shown that a dose of intranasal OT delivered prior to a couple conflict discussion can increase positive communication and reduce conflict-related rises in salivary cortisol levels (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“most studies examine the effects of oxytocin 45 min after administration (Ditzen et al. 2009; Kosfeld et al. 2005), there was a 90-min delay between testing and drug administration”

“Similarly, when oxytocin is administered to couples discussing a conflict, their positive verbal and non-verbal behaviors increase (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“2005), others suggest that oxytocin motivates affiliative behavior toward specific in-group targets (de Dreu et al. 2010, 2011; Ditzen et al. 2009; Miller 2010; Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2009; Theodoridou et al. 2009) consistent with discriminative nepotism and reciprocity (Alexander 1991, 2006; Daly and Wilson 1995).”

“…e.g. Ditzen and coworkers demonstrated an increase of positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior together with a reduction of salivary cortisol levels after intranasal OT administration during a standard conflict discussion in heterosexual couples (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“which suggests that it not only improves positive social interaction, but also diminishes the physiological reactivity to social stressors [117].”

“…ability to “read the mind” of another person (Domes, Heinrichs, Michel, Berger, & Herpertz, 2007), paternal responsiveness to infants during play (Naber, van IJzendoorn, Deschamps, van Engeland, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2010), and positive communication during couple conflict (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“…and reduces depression- and anxiety-like behavior during psychological stress (Legros et al., 1987; Windle et al., 1997; Petersson et al., 1999; Neumann et al., 2000; Heinrichs et al., 2003; Windle et al., 2004; Parker et al., 2005; Ditzen et al., 2009; Zheng et al., 2010; Linnen et al., 2011).”

“, 2011) has een shown to lead to increased approach behavior as well as ecreased cortisol concentration (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“…that OXT strengthens the maintenance of pair-bonds comes from studies showing that OXT increases positive communication during couple conflicts [Ditzen et al., 2009] and stimulates pair-bonded men to keep a larger social distance from an attractive, unfamiliar woman [Scheele et al., 2012].”

“In addition, oxytocin specifically also promotes communication in a partnership; If a conflict occurs in a relationship, an increased oxytocin level ensures that the partners communicate with each other in a more positive and appreciative manner—for example, they show less contempt but more signals of emotional closen…”

“…humans eg revealed that OT improves mind reading (Domes et al, 2007b), increases fixation of the eye region (Guastella et al, 2008), promotes trust (Kosfeld et al, 2005), in-group favoritism (De Dreu et al, 2010, 2011), and positive communication during couple conflicts (Ditzen et al, 2009).”

“…phase: 5-15 minutes, pretreatment: 1-2 minutes, waiting period: 40 minutes, retraining: 3 minutes, test phase: 1 minute) that is presumed to be within the time interval when intranasally administered oxytocin exerts its central effects (see e.g. Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003).”

“For example, oxytocin decreases amygdala activation to threatening stimuli, increases trust, promotes the encoding of positive social memories (37,38), facilitates positive communication between spouses (39), and interacts with social support to decrease physiological stress reactivity (35).”

“Cumulative risk on the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) underpins empathic communication difficulties at the first stages of romantic love”

“Specifically, the data support the findings from experiments showing that higher levels of circulating oxytocin lead to an accelerated physiological recovery from stress (e.g., Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003).”

“, 2007), cooperation (Ditzen et al., 2009), social hugging (Light et al.”

“In human studies, IN administration of OT showed increased trust [95], positive communication [96], reduce cortisol and increase anxiolytic effects in stress [97], improved mind reading [98], and has a positive effect on social behaviors in both normal [99] and autistic persons [100,101].”

“In future studies real interactions around conflict tasks (Ditzen et al., 2009) with parents might be coded for episodes of love-withdrawal, or data from longitudinal studies with observations of parent–child interactions might be used as more informative on participants’ experiences with parental care and discipline…”

“Furthermore, we have shown that intranasal OT decreases negative relative to positive conflict behaviors among couples during conflict discussion (Ditzen et al. 2009).”

“The administration of intranasal oxytocin to men yielded relatively more positive couple interactions in a lab setting (Ditzen et al., 2009) and higher evaluations of the attractiveness of a beloved partner's face compared with control female faces (Scheele et al., 2013).”

“Findings that marital satisfaction positively correlates with emotional expressiveness (King, 1993), could thus be driven in part by an OXT-induced increase in behavioral synchrony between partners in addition to other changes in communicative style (Ditzen et al., 2009; Ditzen et al., 2013).”

“anxiety and cortisol reactivity to stress (Ditzen et al., 2009; Heinrichs et al., 2003), and there is correlational evidence that maternal support is related to increased oxytocin and”

“Ditzen et al. (2009) tested oxytocin’s effect on communication and stress responses for couples.”

“Furthermore, intranasal OT treatment increases positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior during a couple conflict discussion (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“For example, intranasal OT increased positive relative to negative behaviors during a laboratory couple conflict and reduced postconflict cortisol levels (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“…OT was administered intranasally during couple conflict, positive communication between partners increased, circulating cortisol levels decreased (Ditzen et al., 2009), and small blister wounds healed more quickly in marital couples (Gouin et al., 2010), relative to individuals that received a…”

“In terms of social communication, 40 IU intranasal oxytocin administration increased positive communication in relation to negative behavior during a couple of conflict discussions in a randomized controlled trial [30].”

“In non-mother populations, intranasally administered oxytocin results in greater emotional empathy (Hurlemann et al., 2010), generosity (Zak et al., 2007), social cooperation (De Dreu et al., 2010), trust (Kosfeld et al., 2005) and positive communication during conflict (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“As expected, studies of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on the response to different laboratory challenges reveal a stress-dampening effect of exogenous oxytocin on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and fear circuitry, including studies that have explicitly examined stress in an interpersonal context (Ditzen…”

“However, a large body of evidence links the central activity of the neuropeptide oxytocin with affiliative behaviour as well as with stress reduction in mammals particularly humans [21].”

“Human imaging studies showed that brain areas activated in romantic partners to cues of their loved ones are those rich in OT receptors (Acevedo, Aron, Fisher, & Brown, 2012); OT administration increased positive communication between couples (Ditzen et al., 2009); and low risk on the OXTR was associated with greater…”

“Given that OXT attenuates responses to stress, threat and anxiety, particularly in social situations (Heinrichs et al., 2006; Heinrichs and Domes, 2008; Ditzen et al., 2009; Norman et al., 2010; Bartz et al., 2011), OXT is likely to diminish the concern about other people’s disapproval.”

“First, eye-to-eye gaze improved in three subjects, and the ability to converse developed in another three subjects, as expected from the results in healthy subjects (Guastella et al., 2008a,b; Ditzen et al., 2009) and autistic patients (Hollander et al.”

“In addition, OT decreased CT levels in couples following marital conflict discussion (Ditzen et al., 2009), and altered CT reactivity in healthy adults as a function of their emotion regulation capacities (Quirin et al.”

“Both endogenous release of OT and exogenous administration attenuate the autonomic and neuroendocrine response to stress (Altemus et al., 1995; Ditzen et al., 2009; Linnen et al., 2012).”

“Outside the context of parent–infant interaction, OXT administration also leads to a reduction of physiological stress responses during social interaction (Heinrichs, Baumgartner, Kirschbaum, & Ehlert, 2003) and to increased social bonding of adult partners during conflict (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“Increasing OT levels experimentally also increases affiliation in primates in other contexts, such as between pair-bonded marmosets (Smith et al., 2010), and human couples (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“Indeed, the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin, which are secreted during sexual activity [17–20] facilitate bonding behaviors among both humans and other mammals [21 ,22 ,23,24 ].”

“, trust (7, 8), cooperation (9), generosity (10), and empathy (6, but see ref.”

“, 2003), positive social communication during couple conflict (Ditzen et al., 2009) as well as social buffering in animals (Smith and Wang, 2014; Smith et al.”

“Second, adaptation of intranasal oxytocin as route of administration will add consistency with addiction studies in humans, which will directly increase the translational relevance of the basic science models (Ditzen et al., 2009; Guastella et al., 2010; Pedersen et al., 2013).”

“Several recent studies found no gender differences (Savaskan et al. 2008; Ditzen et al., 2009; Guastella et al., 2009a; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009; Theodoridou et al., 2009), whereas others have reported gender differences (Gordon et al.”

“Indeed, animal and human studies have shown that the administration of OXY affects mood states by reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as mitigating stress responses [58-61].”

“Intra-nasal infusion of OT enhances prosocial communication styles between partners (i.e., increased agreeableness, curiosity, emotional support, and sustained eye-to-eye contact (Ditzen et al., 2009)) and facilitates trust between individuals (Kosfeld et al., 2005).”

“When OXT was administered intranasally during conflict in marital couples, positive communication between partners increased and circulating cortisol levels decreased (Ditzen et al., 2009), relative to individuals that received a placebo.”

“OXT may play an important health-promoting role in positive couple interactions (Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“Furthermore, intranasal delivery of OT was shown to increase positive communication and reduce cortisol levels during couple conflict [”

“For instance, in animals and humans OT reduced cortisol levels (Ditzen et al., 2009; Gordon et al., 2008; Heinrichs et al., 2003) and inhibited amygdalar response (Domes et al.”

“The hypothalamic peptide oxytocin (OXT) is released during partner contact (Grewen, Girdler, Amico, & Light, 2005) and contributes to the maintenance of long-term relationships (Ditzen et al., 2009; Kreuder et al., 2017; Scheele et al., 2013).”

“, 2008a; Legros, 2001) while CNS oxytocin diminishes psychological stress responses and enhances prosocial behaviors (Carter, 1999; Heinrichs et al., 2003; Keri et al., 2008; Ditzen et al., 2009).”

“, 2003) and decreases in salivary cortisol levels (Ditzen et al., 2009).”