Neurobehavioral Intervention as a Novel Treatment Approach for Emotion-Regulatory Deficits

Stanford University28 enrolled

Overview

The present study will explore the effectiveness of a computer based neurobehavioral intervention in alleviating symptoms and improving emotion regulation in psychiatric populations. It will increase understanding of psychopathology at a neural-circuit level and aid development of new non-pharmacological treatment for emotion regulatory deficits.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Anxiety Depression

Interventions

Computerized Neurobehavioral InterventionBEHAVIORAL

Targeted, computerized interventions completed from the participants' own home on a computer.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 65 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * current anxiety or depression symptoms * internet access Exclusion Criteria: * lifetime psychotic disorder, past-year substance dependence

Locations (1)

Stanford University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Stanford, California, United States

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Reaction Time to Facial Affect Identification During Emotional Conflict

A standardized set of facial emotions (fear and happy) were presented for a duration of about 1 second in quick succession (a new face every 3-5 seconds). Across each face was written an emotional word ("FEAR" or "HAPPY"), which could be either congruent or incongruent with the facial expression. The participant was instructed to identify the facial emotion as quickly as possible and ignore the overlaid emotion word. The outcome measure of interest was the average speed (across all trials presented) within which an individual could correctly identify the facial emotion as a function of time (pre or post-intervention), treatment arm (control or intervention), facial affect (fear or happy), and congruency of word and facial affect (congruent or incongruent).

Time frame: Baseline, 3-month

Amygdala Blood Oxygenation-level Dependent Response (BOLD) Activation to Face Affect Identification During Emotional Conflict

The degree of differential BOLD signal change (T2\*-weighted contrast in a defined region of the brain as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging) within each individual, averaged across trials, during facial affect identification (fear or happy) and induction of emotional conflict (when the emotion word "FEAR" or "HAPPY" was either congruent or incongruent with the facial expression). We examined the differential degree of amygdala BOLD signal change as a function of emotion type (fear or happy), congruency (congruent or incongruent), and hemisphere (left or right) at baseline and 3 months.

Time frame: Baseline, 3 Months

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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