A large body of research has shown that Oxytocin (OXT) is an important prosocial peptide and there is also initial evidence that the central OXT system is altered in several mental disorders that are characterized by severe social disturbances and deficits, such as anxiety disorders disorders with prominent social dysfunction (e.g., schizophrenia) mood disorders and borderline personality disorder. In particular, Feifel et al. (2010) and Pedersen et al (2011) recently conducted two randomized, placebo-controlled study of intranasal oxytocin in schizophrenia patients to test the hypothesis that oxytocin can reduce symptoms of this disorder. Their results support the hypothesis that oxytocin may reduce psychotic symptoms and may diminish certain social cognition deficits that are not improved by current antipsychotic medications.

to review the main studies conducted on oxytocin and its relation with mental disorders.

We will present a systematic review on the studies conducted on oxytocin and mental disorder, both in non-clinical and in clinical samples. In order to overcome some of the limitations of the previous studies, we will present a study which is going to be run, aimed at testing whether the intranasal administration of the neuropeptide oxytocin as adjunct to antipsychotic treatment improves positive and negative symptoms its effect on social cognition, social functioning and empathy in patients with schizophrenia.