Oxytocin
December 20, 2022Promising
5/10
Purrptide digest
Oxytocin is the closing entry on this list for a reason — it's the one nearly everyone has actually felt, every time they hugged someone they love. Released during physical touch, childbirth, breastfeeding, and social bonding, it's been studied intranasally for effects ranging from anxiety reduction to social cognition. Research into autism spectrum applications shows mixed but genuinely promising results on social recognition tasks — still early, still actively studied, and one of the more human-relevant entries on this entire list.
What this means for you
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If you care about weight/health
Already part of your daily biology — every hug is a free dose. The intranasal/supplemental research is about amplifying an effect you already know.
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If you're a clinician
Synthetic oxytocin (Pitocin) is already a standard obstetric tool. The intranasal social-cognition research is a separate, earlier-stage application.
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If you're a researcher
Mixed but promising autism-spectrum social cognition results make this a genuinely active and meaningful research area, not a dead end.
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If you follow biotech
Already commercially established in obstetrics. The social-cognition and psychiatric applications represent a real, still-developing expansion.
GU
Guastella et al.
University of Sydney
For the nerds
Oxytocin increases gaze to the eye region of human faces
Biological Psychiatry · DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.09.020
Read full paper on PubMed →