Abstract
Background
Emotional processing measures are sensitive to acute administration of clinically useful antidepressant drugs. We wished to test the hypothesis that these models would also be able to detect agents likely to cause depression as an adverse effect. The anti-obesity drug and cannabinoid type 1 receptor antagonist, rimonabant, is associated with significant rates of depression and anxiety in clinical use.
Materials and methods
Thirty healthy adult volunteers were randomly assigned to receive a single dose of rimonabant (20 mg) or lactose placebo in a double-blind, between-groups design. Three hours after medication administration, subjects undertook an emotional processing test battery including facial emotion recognition, emotional word attentional dot probe, self-relevant word classification, emotional and declarative memory and the emotion-potentiated acoustic startle response. Subjective state was assessed via self-report measures.
Results
A single dose of rimonabant did not alter subjective mood. However, rimonabant selectively reduced incidental recall of positive self-relevant adjectives, an effect contrary to that seen following the administration of antidepressants. There were no effects of rimonabant on the other measures of emotional processing.
Conclusions
These results suggest that a single dose of rimonabant decreases positive emotional memory in the absence of changes in subjective state. Further studies are required to examine whether rimonabant might produce a wider range of negative emotional biases with repeated treatment.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Matthew Taylor, Danilo Arnone and Rena Hockney.
Funding and conflict of interest
This study was supported by the MRC. Catherine Harmer serves on the advisory panel for p1vital and has acted as a paid consultant for Lundbeck, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme and p1vital. Philip Cowen has acted as a paid consultant for Eli Lilly, Lundbeck and Servier.
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Horder, J., Cowen, P.J., Di Simplicio, M. et al. Acute administration of the cannabinoid CB1 antagonist rimonabant impairs positive affective memory in healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology 205, 85–91 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1517-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1517-4