This study aims to improve understanding of how people with low mood and negative feelings (known as dysphoric) may be different from people with normal mood and feelings (nondysphoric) when responding to a variety of social and emotional information. The study will look at the patterns of activity in peoples' brains in situations (presented as a battery of tests) after treatment with a medicine (escitalopram) or a placebo. The results from this study will help to gather information about the effectiveness of the various tests being used in this study in detecting any changes due to treatment with an antidepressant. Half the volunteers taking part in this study will be dysphoric (mildly depressed) whilst the other half of volunteers will be healthy volunteers. It is hoped that the results of this study will provide guidance for assessing effectiveness of new medicines and potentially help with the treatment of depression.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Masking
QUADRUPLE
Enrollment
160
7 days dosing of 10mg per day
7 days dosing at 10mg daily
Department of Psychiatry
Oxford, United Kingdom
Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) responses during emotional and cognitive processing
Time frame: 1 day
Validating the sensitivity of dysphoric verses nondysphoric reactions to cognitive and emotional stimuli in detecting antidepressant drug effects.
Using tests of cognitive and emotional processing, specially: Emotional Counting Stroop Emotional Encoding Task Sad Music Visual checkerboard Facial Expression Processing Dot-Probe N-Back digit Symbol substitution California Verbal Learning Test Depression Realism Task
Time frame: 1 day
Genetic influences on the processing of cognitive and emotional stimuli.
Time frame: 6 months to 1 year after study completion
Relationship between BOLD fMRI signals and emotional processing using a biomarker test battery
Time frame: 1 day
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