Cancer cachexia is a complex syndrome characterized not only by a significant weight loss with rapid fall of body mass index (BMI), fatigue, drop of performance clinical indices but also by an important muscle wasting with loss of lean body mass and physical power, and biological abnormalities such as inflammatory syndrome, anemia, reduction of albumin and pre-albumin serum rates [1]. Cachexia, observed in more than 50% of cancer cases, is not easy to manage and, by now, no standard treatment has been acknowledged [1].

A double-blind study combining electrophysiological and psychometrical approaches was carried out to investigate the central effects of an intravenous oxytocin (OT) infusion in normal men. Contingent negative variation (CNV) was selected as the measure of central cognitive evoked potential, and the psychometric tests measured mood, vigilance and memory. OT infusion induced a significant decrease of CNV amplitude and an increase of post-imperative positive potentials in vertex derivations. A similar effect was still evidenced one week after treatment in frontal derivations, suggesting a long time effect of OT on human brain. No significant influence of OT on mood or vigilance tests was apparent; only one item of a memory test revealed a significant impairment of some mnesic performances. These observations provide new electrophysiological arguments supporting a central action of peripheral OT administration in man.