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The effect of the 5-HT4 agonist, Prucalopride, on a functional magnetic resonance imaging faces task in the healthy human brain

Abstract:
Depression is a common and often recurrent illness with significant negative impact on a global scale. Current antidepressants are ineffective for up to one third of people with depression, many of whom experience persistent symptomatology. 5-HT4 receptor agonists show promise in both animal models of depression and cognitive deficit. We therefore studied the effect of the 5-HT4 partial agonist prucalopride (1 mg daily for 6 days) on the neural processing of emotional faces in 43 healthy participants using a randomised placebo-controlled design. Participants receiving prucalopride were more accurate at identifying the gender of emotional faces. In whole brain analyses, prucalopride was also associated with reduced activation in a network of regions corresponding to the default mode network. However, there was no evidence that prucalopride treatment produced a positive bias in the neural processing of emotional faces. Our study provides further support for a pro-cognitive effect of 5-HT4 receptor agonism in humans. While our current behavioural and neural investigations do not suggest an antidepressant-like profile of prucalopride in humans, it will be important to study a wider dose range in future studies.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.3389/fpsyt.2022.859123

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
Psychiatry
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0001-7848-1295
More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
Psychiatry
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0003-0108-1327


Publisher:
Frontiers Media
Journal:
Frontiers in Psychiatry More from this journal
Volume:
13
Article number:
859123
Publication date:
2022-04-12
Acceptance date:
2022-02-22
DOI:
EISSN:
1664-0640


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1250300
Local pid:
pubs:1250300
Deposit date:
2022-04-15

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