Brain Imaging Center, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Brain Imaging Center, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Neuroimage. 2013 Jul 15;75:108-116. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.03.002. Epub 2013 Mar 14.
Non-invasive assessment of human neurotransmitter function is a highly valuable tool in clinical research. Despite the current interest in task-based pharmacological MRI (phMRI) for the assessment of neural correlates of serotonin (5-HT) function, test-retest reliability of this technique has not yet been established. Using a placebo-controlled crossover design, we aimed to examine the repeatability of task-related phMRI with a single dose of oral citalopram in twelve healthy female subjects. Since we were interested in the drug's effect on neural correlates of 5-HT related cognitive processes, a sensorimotor and an emotional face processing paradigm were used. For both paradigms, we found no significant effects of the oral citalopram challenge on task-positive brain activity with whole-brain analysis. With ROI-based analysis, there was a small effect of the challenge related to emotional processing in the amygdala, but this effect could not be reproduced between sessions. We did however find reproducible effects of the challenge on task-negative BOLD-responses, particularly in the medial frontal cortex and paracingulate gyrus. In conclusion, our data shows that a single oral dose of citalopram does not reliably affect emotional processing and sensorimotor activity, but does influence task-negative processes in the frontal cortex. This latter finding validates previous studies indicating a role for 5-HT in suppression of the task-negative network during goal-directed behavior.
非侵入性评估人类神经递质功能是临床研究中非常有价值的工具。尽管目前人们对基于任务的药理学磁共振成像（phMRI）评估 5-羟色胺（5-HT）功能的神经相关性很感兴趣，但该技术的测试-重测信度尚未确定。我们采用安慰剂对照交叉设计，旨在通过十二名健康女性单次口服西酞普兰评估任务相关 phMRI 的可重复性。由于我们对药物对 5-HT 相关认知过程神经相关性的影响感兴趣，因此使用了感觉运动和情绪面孔处理范式。对于这两种范式，我们在全脑分析中均未发现口服西酞普兰挑战对任务正性脑活动的显著影响。采用基于 ROI 的分析，在杏仁核中，挑战与情绪处理相关的小效应，但在两次试验之间无法重现该效应。然而，我们确实发现挑战对任务负性 BOLD 反应有可重复的影响，特别是在前额皮质和旁中央回。总之，我们的数据表明，单次口服西酞普兰不能可靠地影响情绪处理和感觉运动活动，但会影响前额皮质的任务负性过程。这一发现验证了先前的研究结果，即 5-HT 在目标导向行为期间抑制任务负性网络中发挥作用。
