Fig. 1: Study design.
From: Striatal dopamine D2/D3 receptor regulation of human reward processing and behaviour
The order of study interventions and measures for the two arms of the study is shown. The arms were conducted sequentially, with arm 1 completed prior to arm 2 commencing. The order of treatments within each arm (active drug or placebo first) was randomised and counter-balanced to ensure approximately equal numbers of subjects receiving drug or placebo first. Subjects and investigators were blind to the treatment allocation. The washout period was a minimum of 10 days for amisulpride, and a minimum of 28 days for aripiprazole. The monetary incentive delay (MID) task, Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS), Simpson Angus Scale (SAS) and Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale (BARS) were performed at baseline, follow up (FU) 1 and FU 2 visits, to measure the neural response during reward processing and behavioural, hedonic, and motor effects.
