The goal of this clinical medicine study is to investigate how does antidepressant fluoxetine modulate anger processing in healthy young people . The main questions it aims is to answer are: 1. How does fluoxetine affect responses to anger-related stimuli such as words, faces, and autobiographical recall? 2. How does fluoxetine influence responses during frustration induction in frustrative non-reward and threat paradigms? 3. Does the effect manifest in physiological markers, including heart rate variability and facial expressions? Researchers will compare fluoxetine to a placebo to see if drug fluoxetine affects anger processing. Participants will: Take 20mg fluoxetine or a placebo every day for 7 days. Visit the university site for questionnaire and tasks assessments. Heart rate variability and facial expressions will be recorded in some of the tasks.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
TRIPLE
Enrollment
80
Participants will receive 20mg of fluoxetine daily for 7 days. Tablets encapsulated to aid blinding.
Participants will receive one dose placebo (sucrose) daily for 7 days. Tablets encapsulated to aid blinding.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford
Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
RECRUITINGBehavioral Measure: Facial Expression Recognition Task (FERT)
Recognition of angry faces in the Facial Expression Recognition Task
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment
Behavioural Measure: The Affordances Task
Performance on an affordances task in which participants have to decide to fight or escape under threatening situations with different environmental affordance conditions.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment
Behavioural Measure: Emotional Categorization Task (ECAT)
Performance on recognising and memorising anger related words in the Emotional Categorization Task (ECAT)
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Performance on Carnival Task
Performance on an anger induction task in which the study's rigged design creates frustrating non-reward responses.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Subjective Measure: Rest Task
Participants' rating of anger-related emotions during a resting task.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Subjective Measure: Anger Memory Recall Task
Participants' ratings of anger-related emotions and bodily sensations during a task that involves guided imagery of a past personal experience.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Physiological Measure: Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability measures across a battery of anger-induction tasks.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Physiological Measure: Facial Expression
Video recordings that identify facial expressions across a battery of anger-induction tasks.
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
Behavioural measure: Emotional Recognition Memory Task (EMEM)
Description: Performance on recognising and memorising anger related words in the Emotional Recognition Memory Task (EMEM).
Time frame: On the last day of the 7-day treatment.
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