It has long been established that interpersonal relationships can have a profound impact on
health and well-being. Yet, the investigators are still learning about the complex biological
processes that contribute to positive social interactions and the ability to develop and
maintain social relationships. Recent research has begun to focus on vasopressin, a
neuropeptide that is naturally produced in the hypothalamus, because administration of this
neuropeptide has been associated with empathy, cooperation, memory of social stimuli (e.g.,
faces), and brain activity in neural regions associated with social and emotional processes.
To date, several aspects of vasopressin's effects on social behavior have been unexplored. As
such, the overarching goal of this project is to examine the effects of intranasal
vasopressin on several tasks involving learning and social processes. In addition, the
investigators will explore associated neural activity through functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI). Results from the study will inform our understanding of the neurobiology of
socioemotional processes.
The investigators hypothesize that compared to placebo, vasopressin will improve deception
detection, increase empathy and altruism, enhance responses to photo stimuli of primary
caregivers, and improve learning when the subject has a prosocial goal of teaching another
person. These effects will manifest in behavioral and neural activity. It is also
hypothesized that main effects will not be found for vasopressin, but rather, analyses of
relevant moderators will elucidate these findings.