The Effect of Emotional Working Memory Training on Reducing Depressive Symptoms

Hunan Normal University31 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to test whether emotional working memory training and attention bias modification training are an effective neurobehavioral therapy to improve depressive symptoms.That is whether emotional working memory training is superior to attention bias modification training or not in reducing depressive symptoms over 1 year after training.

Attentional bias has been theorized to play a critical role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Attentional bias modification training (ABMT), an experimental paradigm that uses training to induce adaptive attentional bias, was developed to test the causal model and this has therapeutic implications in depression.To test the effect of ABMT on treatment of depressive symptoms, a randomized, double-blind, placebo and blank controlled trial is conducted in college students who are experiencing mild-to-severe symptoms of depression.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Depressive Symptoms

Interventions

Working memory trainingBEHAVIORAL

Participants complete 10 sessions of maintaining positive working memory training during a two-week period. Each session consists of 15 blocks.

Positive ABMTBEHAVIORAL

Participants complete 8 sessions of attention bias modification training (ABMT) during a two-week period. Each session consists of 218 trials, and the time to complete a training session is 12 minutes.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 16 YearsMax age: 21 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: Meet the major and mild depression disorder's criteria Exclusion Criteria: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or organic mental disorder; any concurrent psychotherapy; any concurrent psychotropic medication.

Locations (1)

Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University

Changsha, Hunan, China

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Changes of depressive symptoms

Depression symptoms tested by clinicians using the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children (K-SADS)

Time frame: pre-training, post-training(2 weeks after pre-training), follow-ups(1-week,2-week,4-week,7-week,3-month( booster pre-training), 4-month (booster post-training), 5-month,6-month,12-month after post-training)

Secondary Outcomes

Changes of self-reported depressive symptoms

Self-reported depressive symptoms assessed by Beck depression scale-second version (BDI-II)

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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