Dissecting the mechanisms of fear formation: a pharmacological study with healthy volunteers

Conditions: post-traumatic stress disorder
PTSD
10002861

Registration Number: NL-OMON38140

Lead Sponsor: Erasmus MC, Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam

Brief Summary: Not available

Detailed Description: Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: Pending

Sex: Not specified

Target Recruitment: 120

Inclusion Criteria

The subjects must be in good mental and physical health (as established by first contact and health questionnaire). Participants with a past or present psychiatric,or respiratory (including asthma) will be excluded from the study. Background of high blood pressure or cardiovascular diseases will also be an exclusion criterion. Testing days for female subjects will demand that they are in the end of the follicular phase in order to standardize the influence of gonadal hormones. Participants must be drug and alcohol free from at least 48 hrs before time of testing and should refrain from caffeine and cigarette smoking from 3 hours before testing. Age should be comprised between 18 and 40 years.

Exclusion Criteria

Uncorrected vision disturbances, pregnancy, use of oral contraceptives or lactation, any neurological and psychiatric diseases past and present, including manic and suicidal depression.History of seizures, respiratory disease (including asthma), cardiovascular illness or head trauma with loss of consciousness, abnormal blood pressure, glaucoma or abnormal clinical laboratory tests. Subjects will also be excluded when they cannot understand the Dutch and English languages sufficiently to understand the purposes and implications of the experiment.

Study & Design

Study Type: Interventional

Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
<p>• Skin conduction response and/or eye blink response as a measure of<br /><br>differential acquisition of memory for each group.<br /><br><br /><br>• Comparison of fear response measures between the different drug groups and<br /><br>placebo will allow to determine what is the roles of noradrenaline enhancement<br /><br>or blockage in fear memory consolidation. Enhancement or weakening of memory<br /><br>with any of the drugs will allow confirmations of assumptions on the specific<br /><br>effects of noradrenaline in the postlearning consolidation processes.</p><br>

Secondary Outcome Measures