Conditions: Major Depressive Disorder
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 20
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
We are doing this research study to find out if people who get better while taking a specific kind of antidepressant medication (a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI) and people who get better while taking placebo (an inactive substance) have similar chemicals in their brains. Some participants may complete a procedure called Acute Tryptophan Depletion (ATD), which is a way to study the role of serotonin in depression. Some participants may also undergo a magnetic resonance-positron emission tomography (MR-PET) scan.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: After a screening visit, the patient will undergo a baseline assessment and will be randomized to escitalopram 10mg or placebo. arm 2: After a screening visit, the patient will undergo a baseline assessment and will be randomized to escitalopram 10mg or placebo.

Interventions: intervention 1: Escitalopram 10mg intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None

Protocol document: