Evaluating Brain Responses to Facial Expressions in Major Depressive Disorder

Completed

Conditions studied: Current Major Depressive Disorder, Healthy, Remitted Major Depressive Disorder

In brief

This study will evaluate emotional processing biases in the brain while viewing facial expressions in adults with current or remitted major depressive disorder and healthy volunteers.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00071123

Run by

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

People needed

172

Starts

2003-10-09

Expected to finish

2010-11-15

Last updated by the study team

2017-07-02

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 55. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may not qualify if…

• Subjects will be recruited who are drug-na ve or who have not received psychotropic drugs for at least 3 weeks (8 weeks for fluoxetine) prior to scanning. Effective medications will not be discontinued for the purposes of the study. Subjects will also be excluded if they have a) serious suicidal ideation or behavior, b) psychosis to the extent that the ability to provide informed consent is in doubt, c) medical conditions or concomitant medications (see Appendix III) that are likely to influence cerebral blood flow or neurological function including cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine and neurological diseases, d) a history of drug or alcohol abuse within 1 year or a lifetime history of alcohol or drug dependence (DSM-IV criteria), e) current pregnancy (as documented by pregnancy testing prior to scanning), f) general MRI exclusion criteria, g) history of non-response to Zoloft or of intolerable or adverse side effects during Zoloft treatment. Additional exclusion criteria applied to control subjects are: a) subjects with a current or past history of other axis I psychiatric conditions, b) subjects with first-degree family members with current or past history of mood disorder.
• Subjects beyond age 55 are excluded to reduce the biological heterogeneity encompassed by the MDD criteria, and to reduce the variability of the BOLD signal. Subjects whose first major depressive episodes arose temporally after other major medical or psychiatric conditions will also be excluded, since their functional imaging results generally differ from those reported in primary MDD.

Where it is running

• National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike — Bethesda, Maryland, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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