Role of Oxytocin in Treating Anxiety Disorders

 What is oxytocin?

It is a compound that is naturally secreted in mammals by the brain into the bloodstream during socially interactive and sexual behaviors. Women produce it during labor and, it helps in connecting them with their baby and excites the breast milk production.

The hormone oxytocin is most prevalently recognized for its part played in assisting labor, delivery, and breastfeeding. It may additionally perform a role in promoting mothers bond with their newborns, by developing love, trust, and social skills such as the capability to perceive emotions and understand. This chemical substance is also discharged through lovemaking, gaining it the nickname 'cuddle hormone'. Different types of touches of love, from clutching a teddy bear to patting your pet dog, likewise initiates the release of the hormone. Oxytocin acknowledged as a love hormone produces trust and hospitality.

Based on all of these influences, oxytocin has been clinically trialed as a means of treating anxiety symptoms and improving social skills.

The concept behind oxytocin therapy

The investigators observed the anxiety-reducing outcomes of oxytocin, the neurotransmitter also named the “love hormone” based on its powers to decrease stress and boost pro-social behaviors including trust, compassion, and openness to social venture. 

Impact of oxytocin on Anxiety Disorders

The investigation team led by Stephanie M. Gorka of the University of Illinois and Pradeep Nathan, of Cambridge University, explored how oxytocin influences associations of the amygdala with other parts of the brain in individuals having an anxiety disorder. As research participants saw fearful faces, MRI scans of their brains showed that the amygdala reached the other parts of the brain significantly less in those having social anxiety disorders, in comparison to those not having anxiety disorders. The lesser the communication of the amygdala with other brain regions was, the greater the anxious individuals’ baseline stress levels were. Significantly, oxytocin reversed the displayed trends by raising amygdala connectivity in patients with anxiety, while lowering amygdala connectivity among everyone else.

These conclusions propose that oxytocin can produce specific impacts on anxiety patients through its impact on the amygdala. More widely, the evidence that oxytocin produced contrasting effects in the two groups of participants symbolizes that the neurotransmitter’s progress in decreasing stress and advancing social behavior is dependent on particular brain characteristics, which vary among those having anxiety and those that do not have the disorder. Therefore, while oxytocin remains to show commitment as a possible therapy for anxiety, it might not encourage convinced social behaviors in everyone.

Oxytocin Nasal Spray

Oxytocin nasal spray is the synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin nasal sprays are generally utilized in medical investigations of psychiatric outcomes because a nasal spray enables oxytocin to move more readily from the blood to the brain than an injection. 

Oxytocin Nasal Spray is also used for:

  1. Milk flow in breastfeeding
  2. Improvements linked with social skills in Autism
  3. Female Orgasmic Disorder
  4. Female Arousal Disorder
  5. Delayed Orgasm in Men

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