7-day Simvastatin and Emotional Processing

• Status: Recruiting
• Trial end date: 2021-09-30
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Work in our group has revealed that short-term (7-day) administration of antidepressants produces positive biases in the processing of emotional information in healthy volunteers. Such effect might be an important neuropsychological mechanism of antidepressant action.

The current study will investigate the effect of seven-day administration of simvastatin 20mg on emotional and reward processing tasks in healthy volunteers. There is evidence that statins may exert antidepressant effects via anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant pathways, and it is therefore predicted that simvastatin will have positive effects on emotional and reward processing.

• Phase: Phase 1/Phase 2
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Details

• Lead Sponsor: University of Oxford
• Treatments: Simvastatin

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Male or female

• Aged 18-50 years

• Sufficiently fluent English to understand and complete the tasks

• Body Mass Index in the range of 18-30

• Participant is willing and able to give informed consent for participation in the study

• Not currently taking any regular medications (except the contraceptive pill)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Currently any regular medications (except the contraceptive pill)

• History or current significant psychiatric illness

• Current alcohol or substance misuse disorder

• History or current significant hepatic disease

• History or current significant neurological condition (e.g. epilepsy)

• History of haemorrhagic stroke or lacunar infarct

• Known hyperglycaemia/pre-diabetes

• Known hypersensitivity to the study drug (i.e. simvastatin) or sucrose

• Pregnant, breast feeding, women of child-bearing potential not using appropriate contraceptive measures

• Participation in a study that uses the same or similar computer tasks as those used in the present study

• Participation in a study that involves the use of a medication within the last three months