Adult Study Oxytocin - fMRI

During tasks in which participants will see and hear various stimuli, investigators will measure the change in neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction between placebo and oxytocin testing days using the fMRI 3T Siemens Skyra scanner.

The QLS is a 21-item clinical rating scale where the interviewer rates the participant's responses on a scale of 1-6 where 6 indicates no impairment. In the fMRI study an abbreviated version of the QLS is used that includes 9 of the 21 items. The 9 items are each derived from the sections examining interpersonal relations, occupational role functioning, intrapsychic foundations, and common objects.

The SFS is designed to assess a subject's social skills and performance, and to measure functions that are of importance for schizophrenic patients. It is a 79-item scale completed by the subject.

The UCLA Loneliness Scale assesses the loneliness level of participants. It is a 20-item scale where responses are measured from O ("I often feel this way") to N ("I never feel this way").

The ECR is used to evaluate the construct of adult attachment. The scale involves 36 itemized statements split into four parts, each part referring to a different attachment figure. Participants rank each item using a 7-point likert scale.

The PBI measures fundamental parenting styles as perceived the child. The questionnaire is retrospective in that it asks the adult participant to answer the questions based on how they remember their parents to be during up until they were 16 years old. The measure is completed for both mothers and fathers separately. There are 25 questions where half the questions are focused on how the parent cared for them and half are focused on how the parents protected them. A likert scale is used to measure responses where 1 is agree (i.e. very like) and 4 is disagree (i.e. very dislike).

The American National Adult Reading Test (AMNART) is an instrument used to estimate premorbid verbal IQ in adults. Participants are shown 45 words one at a time and are asked to read the word aloud. The scorer then writes 0 if the participant read the word incorrectly or 1 if the pronunciation is correct.

The CTQ is a brief survey of 6 early traumatic experiences, including death, divorce, violence, sexual abuse, illness or other. The scale determines and assesses an individual's understanding of their childhood trauma, if applicable.

The EQ is a 60-item self-report questionnaire that is designed to measure empathy in adults. Participants use a 4 item likert scale to record their responses (1=definitely agree, 4= definitely disagree).

The Kinsey scale attempts to describe a person's sexual orientation using a scale from 0 (i.e. heterosexual) to 6 (i.e. homosexual).

This assess participants' socioeconomic status through their educational level and occupational level using a scale from 1 (i.e. professional, higher executive level) to 7 (i.e. less than 7 years of school, unskilled employee). This scale is also used for the participants' primary and secondary caretakers.