NCT06636812

Losartan and Emotional Processing in Young People

The Effects of Single-dose Losartan on the Processing of Emotional Information in Healthy Adolescents: a Randomised Controlled Study

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: EARLY_Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Oxford · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years – 20 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study explores the effects of single-dose losartan (50mg) versus placebo on emotional processing in young healthy volunteers.

Detailed description

Compared to children and adults, adolescents are most likely to develop an anxiety disorder and less likely to respond to even the most effective treatment - exposure therapy. Similarly, fear extinction - the laboratory equivalent to exposure therapy - is impaired in this young age group. Animal and human research suggests that such deficits in fear reduction may be underpinned by insufficient functioning of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during adolescence as part of normative development. A single dose of losartan, a commonly prescribed blood pressure drug targeting the renin-angiotensin system, has been shown to enhance fear extinction in adult humans (Zhou et al. 2019). Most importantly, such effects are seen to be driven by improved vmPFC function following losartan (Zhou et al. 2019). Our own work in adults has also demonstrated rapid beneficial effects of single-dose losartan on other neurocognitive markers relevant to anxiety and treatment response, while not revealing any adverse reactions (Reinecke et al., 2018; Pulcu et al., 2019; Shkreli et al., 2020). These findings suggest that the renin-angiotensin system plays a key role in the extinction of anxiety, and that adding losartan to exposure therapy for anxiety in humans might have synergistic effects. In this double-blind, randomized between-group study, we will investigate the effects of a single dose of losartan (weight-adjusted: 50mg if over/ 25mg if below 50kg) versus placebo on emotional processing in N=60 healthy volunteers aged 16-20 years. One hour later, when drug-peak plasma levels are reached, participants will work on a battery of computerized tasks, including a fear extinction task and other tasks exploring attention for and learning from neutral and emotional stimuli of differing valence. Results from this study will help us understand how the renin-angiotensin system affects emotional processing in human adolescents, and they will help us identify potential synergistic overlaps with the cognitive mechanisms of effective exposure therapy.

Conditions

• Emotional Processing

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Losartan potassium	Single dose losartan (25mg or 50 mg, weight-adjusted), encapsulated identically to placebo
OTHER	Placebo	Single tablet encapsulated identically to placebo

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-03-07
• Primary completion: 2025-12-31
• Completion: 2025-12-31
• First posted: 2024-10-15
• Last updated: 2025-06-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom