NCT05357547

Serotonin-receptor Agonism in Reward Processing

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 2
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 63 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Oxford · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

There is growing animal and human evidence for role of 5HT1A receptor agonism in treating depression and reward deficits. The next step is to translate this evidence directly into humans by characterising the effects of buspirone, as a 5HT1A agonist, on cognitive models of reward and emotional processing. There is a paucity of behavioural evidence for the effect of 5HT1A receptor agonism, using buspirone as a probe, on primary reward processing (e.g. food), effort-based decision making or reward learning. Furthermore, the effects of 5HT1A agonism on non-emotive cognition, such as working memory, has yet to be investigated at a behavioural level in humans. This study will characterise the effects of buspirone, as a probe for 5HT1A receptor agonism, on reward processing in human cognitive models. Furthermore it will examine its role in emotional processing and working memory. This will add to the evidence base of the neurocognitive effects of 5HT1A receptor agonism in humans, which is of relevance to the development of this as a target for future treatment development. The study will be a double blinded, placebo controlled study involving healthy volunteers. Participants will receive a single dose of buspirone and then undergo a battery of psychometric testing to examine reward processing, emotional processing and a memory. Frequent monitoring of temperature and salivary cortisol shall be taken as surrogate markers of pre- and postsynaptic 5HT1A receptor activation.

Conditions

• Anhedonia

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Buspirone 20mg	Buspirone tablets in opaque capsule. Used as probe for 5HT1A agonism
DRUG	Placebo comparator	Lactose-sucrose tablets in opaque capsule

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-05-13
• Primary completion: 2023-04-18
• Completion: 2023-04-18
• First posted: 2022-05-03
• Last updated: 2023-05-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom