Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder: Their Impact on the Processing of Information and Learning

Anxiety Disorders Clinical Trial

Official title: Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder: Their Impact on the Processing of Social Emotional Information and Instrumental Learning

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to increase researchers understanding of the biological basis of generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder. They will investigate how the brain activity associated with specific thoughts and feelings may play a role in these anxiety disorders. This knowledge will be used to design interventions to help those with these illnesses.

To qualify for this study, participants must be evaluated via an initial telephone screening interview and material sent through the mail.

Participants will then be required to make three visits to NIH. During the first visit, they will be asked questions about their general mood, degree of nervousness, thinking skills, and behavior. They will undergo a thorough physical exam, including an EKG, blood work, urinalysis, and a pregnancy test for women of childbearing potential. During the second visit, participants will spend about 2.5 hours doing various tasks while sitting and looking at a computer screen. These tasks will guide them to experience specific kinds of thoughts and emotions. Researchers will attach electrodes to the participants hands to monitor the amount of electricity conducted by the skin. The third visit will be similar to the second visit, but participants will perform the tasks while lying in a MRI scanner.

Participants will be compensated up to $400 for their involvement in this study.

Clinical Trial Description

There have been suggestions that the threshold for amygdala activity is lower in individuals with anxiety disorders than in healthy individuals. However, despite it's immediate plausibility, there have been relatively few tests of this hypothesis. Specifically, there have been very few explorations of the performance of patients with anxiety disorders on measures known to implicate the amygdala.

Although the high co-morbidity of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) complicates the issue, the fact that the disorders doubly dissociate suggests that they are due to dysfunctional activity in separable neurocognitive systems. We would suggest that the hyper-responsive amygdala hypothesis is more likely to be linked to the explanation of GAD. In contrast, SAD may be due to reduced activation thresholds for units in a system that responds to social threat and which recruits lateral orbital frontal cortex. Thus, the current project will determine the performance of patients with GAD and SAD on measures in which the amygdala is known to play a role and also measures that recruit lateral orbital frontal cortex and the system for social response reversal. In addition, two proposed neuro-imaging studies will directly assess neural responses in these two systems in both patient populations. The project should provide clear data that will constrain future theorizing on the pathology implicated in these two disorders. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Anxiety Disorders
• Disease
• Phobic Disorders

• NCT number: NCT00062517
• Study type: Observational
• Source: National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (CC)
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 5, 2003
• Completion date: September 21, 2016