The Effects of Vasopressin on Attention Control

The Effects of Vasopressin on Attention Control: An Eye-tracking Study

The main aim of the present study is to investigate whether intranasal vasopressin (20IU) could influence attention control in a social-emotional saccade/antisaccade eye-tracking paradigm.

A number of previous studies have reported vasopressin's effect on human social behavior and social cognition, although it remains unclear whether vasopressin could modulate attention allocation including stimulus-driven bottom-up control and goal-directed top-down control. In the current randomized, between-subject, placebo controlled study, 89 healthy male subjects will be recruited and receive either vasopressin (20 IU) or placebo control administered intranasally. 45 minutes after treatment subjects will be required to complete a social-emotional saccade /antisaccade eye-tracking paradigm. The paradigm uses social (happy, sad, angry, fear, and neutral faces) as well as non-social (oval shapes) stimuli to explore social- and emotion-specific effects of vasopressin.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Healthy participants
• Non smokers

Exclusion Criteria:

• Previous or current medical, psychiatric, neurological disorder
• Regular medication
• Use of any psychoactive substances in the 24 hours before experiment
• Contra-indications for vasopressin
• Contra-indications for eye-tracking data acquisition