Trial reportPsychological medicine2012
Short-term SSRI treatment normalises amygdala hyperactivity in depressed patients.
Trial report in Psychological medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 246 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prefrontal-limbic circuit modulation in anxiety disorders: Differential neural effects of psychotherapy versus pharmacotherapy revealed by ALE meta-analysis.Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors versus placebo in patients with major depressive disorder. A systematic review with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2017Pooled it
- Defining biotypes for depression and anxiety based on large-scale circuit dysfunction: a theoretical review of the evidence and future directions for clinical translation.Depression and anxiety · 2017Pooled it
- Examining fronto-limbic brain and sleep mechanisms of antidepressant effects in cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- A large-scale multimodal investigation of the interplay between the serotonergic system and emotion processing.Translational psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Amygdala Reactivity, Antidepressant Discontinuation, and Relapse.JAMA psychiatry · 2024Trial
- General and anxiety-linked influences of acute serotonin reuptake inhibition on neural responses associated with attended visceral sensation.Translational psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Analgesic effect of perioperative duloxetine in patients after total knee arthroplasty: a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2022Trial
- Impact of ibuprofen and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma on emotion-related neural activation: A randomized, placebo-controlled trial.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2021Trial
- Association between dynamic resting-state functional connectivity and ketamine plasma levels in visual processing networks.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Effect of Prefrontal Cortex Stimulation on Regulation of Amygdala Response to Threat in Individuals With Trait Anxiety: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA psychiatry · 2019Trial
- Acute effects of LSD on amygdala activity during processing of fearful stimuli in healthy subjects.Translational psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Amygdala Reactivity to Emotional Faces in the Prediction of General and Medication-Specific Responses to Antidepressant Treatment in the Randomized iSPOT-D Trial.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- 'Can you look me in the face?' Short-term SSRI administration reverts avoidant ocular face exploration in subjects at risk for psychopathology.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Impact of acute administration of escitalopram on the processing of emotional and neutral images: a randomized crossover fMRI study of healthy women.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2014Trial
- Effects of citalopram and escitalopram on fMRI response to affective stimuli in healthy volunteers selected by serotonin transporter genotype.Psychiatry research · 2013Trial
- Structural Brain Network Alterations in Relation to Treatment and Illness Severity in Bipolar Disorder.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Emotional Blunting During Antidepressant Treatment: Implications for Clinical Decision-Making and Patient-Centred Care.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Review
- Negative affect interacts with perceptual affective biases.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Developing Clinically Interpretable Neuroimaging Biotypes in Psychiatry.Biological psychiatry · 2026Review
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAntidepressant drugs such as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) remediate negative biases in emotional processing in depressed patients in both behavioural and neural outcome measures. However, it is not clear if these effects occur before, or as a consequence of, changes in clinical state.
methodIn the present study, we investigated the effects of short-term SSRI treatment in depressed patients on the neural response to fearful faces prior to clinical improvement in mood. Altogether, 42 unmedicated depressed patients received SSRI treatment (10 mg escitalopram daily) or placebo in a randomised, parallel-group design. The neural response to fearful and happy faces was measured on day 7 of treatment using functional magnetic resonance imaging. A group of healthy controls was imaged in the same way.
resultsAmygdala responses to fearful facial expressions were significantly greater in depressed patients compared to healthy controls. However, this response was normalised in patients receiving 7 days treatment with escitalopram. There was no significant difference in clinical depression ratings at 7 days between the escitalopram and placebo-treated patients.
conclusionsOur results suggest that short-term SSRI treatment in depressed patients remediates amygdala hyperactivity in response to negative emotional stimuli prior to clinical improvement in depressed mood. This supports the hypothesis that the clinical effects of antidepressant treatment may be mediated in part through early changes in emotional processing. Further studies will be needed to show if these early effects of antidepressant medication predict eventual clinical outcome.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.