Work in our group has revealed that short-term (7-day) administration of antidepressants
produces positive biases in the processing of emotional information in healthy volunteers.
Such effect might be an important neuropsychological mechanism of antidepressant action.
The current study will investigate the effect of seven-day administration of simvastatin 20mg
on emotional and reward processing tasks in healthy volunteers. There is evidence that
statins may exert antidepressant effects via anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant pathways, and
it is therefore predicted that simvastatin will have positive effects on emotional and reward
processing.