Oxytocin and Autism Ranking:

Future Research

Summary of Existing Research

There is a small amount of high quality research evidence (18 group studies) and a very small amount of low quality research (four single-case design studies with three or more participants) into the use of oxytocin for autistic individuals.

This research suggests that oxytocin may be an effective way to help some autistic adolescents and adults with some issues (such as difficulty making eye contact and poor emotion recognition skills). There is insufficient research to determine if oxytocin can help them with other issues (such as repetitive and restricted behaviours, interests and activities).

However we believe that many of the studies we identified do not really constitute proper trials into the effectiveness or otherwise of oxytocin as an intervention for autistic people. Rather they are quasi-theoretical studies, the results of which may have no relevance in the real world.

At this stage, we do not know whether oxytocin will have any benefits nor whether there are any risks involved. For this reason we do not feel that oxytocin can be considered a valid intervention for autistic people.

Recommendations for Future Research

There is a need for more research into oxytocin which uses scientifically robust, experimental methodologies with larger numbers of more diverse participants.  That research should 

• Investigate whether oxytocin is more or less effective than other interventions designed to achieve the same aims, such as theory of mind training.
• Investigate whether specific autistic individuals (such as those with oxytocin signalling deficits) are more likely to benefit from oxytocin than other individuals.
• Investigate the optimal dosage, length of treatment, and form of administration for different autistic individuals.
• Investigate if oxytocin is a safe and effective treatment in the medium to long term and in real world settings.
• Involve autistic people in the design, development and evaluation of those studies

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Nov 2017

Next Review

01 May 2024