The Effect of Losartan on Emotional Processing in Healthy Volunteers

University of Oxford

Status

Completed

Conditions

Healthy Volunteers

Treatments

Other: Placebo

Drug: Losartan

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT03434054

MSD-IDREC-C3-2015-832

Details and patient eligibility

About

This experimental medicine study explores whether a single dose of losartan (50mg) versus placebo affects the processing of positive and negative stimuli, using fMRI.

Full description

Losartan has been shown to accelerate fear extinction in animals and to prevent the development of anxiety disorders in humans, emphasising its potential to possibly enhance exposure therapy in humans. This study explores the basic effects of losartan on emotional processing, to identify neural mechanisms by which the drug might have synergistic effects on psychological treatment in humans.

In a double-blind between-groups design, 30 healthy volunteers will be randomised to a group receiving a single dose of losartan (50mg) versus placebo, and this study will measure the effects of probing renin-angiotensin function on emotional information processing, using functional magnet resonance imaging (fMRI). Such knowledge will ultimately be essential for the development of more effective pharmaco-psychological treatment approaches for anxiety disorders.

Enrollment

30 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 50 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

willing and able to provide informed consent
male or Female, aged 18-50
body mass index (BMI) of 18-30 kg/m2
fluent English skills
non- or light-smoker (< 5 cigarettes a day)

Exclusion criteria

Female participant who is pregnant or breast-feeding
central nervous system (CNS) active medication during the last 6 weeks
Current blood pressure/other heart medication (esp. aliskiren or beta blockers)
Intravascular fluid depletion
Past or present DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) axis-I diagnosis
Alcohol or substance abuse
First-degree family member with a history of a severe psychiatric disease
Impaired liver or kidney function
Lifetime history of epilepsy or other neurological disease, systemic infection, or clinically significant hepatic, cardiac, obstructive respiratory, renal, cerebrovascular, metabolic, endocrine or pulmonary disease or disorder which, in the opinion of the investigator, may either put the participants at risk because of participation in the study, or may influence the result of the study, or the participant's ability to participate in the study.
Insufficient English skills
participated in another study involving certain medication during last 6 weeks
Contraindication to magnet resonance imaging (MRI) scanning (e.g. pacemaker)