Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2024
Local and global effects of sedation in resting-state fMRI: a randomized, placebo-controlled comparison between etifoxine and alprazolam.
Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The clinical relevance of healthy neurodevelopmental connectivity in childhood and adolescence: a meta-analysis of resting-state fMRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of a single dose of lorazepam on resting state functional connectivity in healthy adults.Brain imaging and behavior · 2025Trial
- Diazepam modulates hippocampal CA1 functional connectivity in people at clinical high-risk for psychosis.Psychological medicine · 2025Trial
- Synaptic correlates of benzodiazepine tolerance.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Effect of ketamine intervention on hemodynamic responses in patients with treatment-resistant depression.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Pharmacological manipulation of neurotransmitter activity induces disparate effects on cerebral blood flow and resting-state fluctuations.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Diazepam alters the shape of alpha oscillations recorded from human cortex using EEG.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
TSPO ligands are promising alternatives to benzodiazepines in the treatment of anxiety, as they display less pronounced side effects such as sedation, cognitive impairment, tolerance development and abuse potential. In a randomized double-blind repeated-measures study we compare a benzodiazepine (alprazolam) to a TSPO ligand (etifoxine) by assessing side effects and acquiring resting-state fMRI data from 34 healthy participants after 5 days of taking alprazolam, etifoxine or a placebo. To study the effects of the pharmacological interventions in fMRI in detail and across different scales, we combine in our study complementary analysis strategies related to whole-brain functional network connectivity, local connectivity analysis expressed in regional homogeneity, fluctuations in low-frequency BOLD amplitudes and coherency of independent resting-state networks. Participants reported considerable adverse effects such as fatigue, sleepiness and concentration impairments, related to the administration of alprazolam compared to placebo. In resting-state fMRI we found a significant decrease in functional connection density, network efficiency and a decrease in the networks rich-club coefficient related to alprazolam. While observing a general decrease in regional homogeneity in high-level brain networks in the alprazolam condition, we simultaneously could detect an increase in regional homogeneity and resting-state network coherence in low-level sensory regions. Further we found a general increase in the low-frequency compartment of the BOLD signal. In the etifoxine condition, participants did not report any significant side effects compared to the placebo, and we did not observe any corresponding modulations in our fMRI metrics. Our results are consistent with the idea that sedation globally disconnects low-level functional networks, but simultaneously increases their within-connectivity. Further, our results point towards the potential of TSPO ligands in the treatment of anxiety and depression.
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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.