PTSD Affect Labeling Study

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Trial

Official title: Affect Labeling: A Promising New Approach for Mitigating PTSD

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The overall goal of this study is to use fMRI and psychophysiological measures to investigate a novel strategy involving "Affect Labeling" for improving emotion regulation in PTSD that could lead to a new treatment regimen for PTSD.

Our project has two specific aims. First, the investigators aim to identify a novel neural target for possible PTSD intervention by verifying that RVLPFC-based inhibitory processing is impaired in PTSD. Second, the investigators will examine whether repeated practice with a simple cognitive-emotional task that requires inhibitory processing, namely, affect labeling, can strengthen the RVLPFC's ability to down-regulate emotional responses and physiological reactivity in PTSD and thereby form the basis of a novel treatment strategy to be developed in future studies. Secondary objectives are to examine the extent to which RVLPFC-based inhibitory impairments in PTSD are specific to trauma-relevant emotional processing (i.e., trauma-related distress) or extend to other types of inhibitory regulation in general, which would have implications for the future study of inhibitory-enhancement-based interventions for PTSD.

Clinical Trial Description

Previous research suggests that individuals with PTSD have impaired RVLPFC- based inhibitory regulation. Such deficits would appear to contribute to poor inhibitory regulation of emotional responses when faced with trauma-reminders, which represents a core pathological mechanism of PTSD.

However, no previous studies have directly examined RVLPFC-based inhibitory deficits of emotional responses in PTSD. Affect labeling is a simple process that involves linguistic processing of emotional responses, for example, verbally labeling current feelings as "anxious" or "angry", and is an established form of affective inhibitory regulation involving RVLPFC down-regulation of amygdala-based affective responses. Therefore, the investigators will test whether PTSD is associated with impaired RVLPFC-based emotional inhibitory processing compared to healthy control participants by performing fMRI scan while they use affect labeling to label their own emotional responses to emotionally-evocative images relevant to their trauma. The investigators will then test whether repeated practice with affect labeling will "repair" the impaired RVLPFC inhibitory control in PTSD, by strengthening the capacity of the RVLPFC to down-regulate amygdala responses. In support of this idea, the investigators have previously demonstrated that exposure therapy augmented with affect labeling was more effective in reducing fear responses than exposure alone in specific phobia (Kircanski et al., 2013). In the present study, following the initial baseline fMRI scan mentioned above, participants with PTSD will complete three weeks of affect labeling training and then undergo a second fMRI scan to again assess inhibitory regulation capacity.

The investigators hypothesize that, compared to healthy (without PTSD) subjects, participants with PTSD will exhibit less RVLPFC activity, more amygdala activity (i.e., less amygdala deactivation), as well as less inverse correlation between the RVLPFC and the amygdala at baseline, reflecting impaired inhibitory regulation. In addition, the investigators hypothesize that participants will exhibit increased physiological reactivity compared to healthy control subjects.

The investigators also hypothesize that affect labeling training will lead to increased inhibitory regulation success, which will be reflected by increased RVLPFC activity, decreased amygdala activity, increased inverse connectivity between RVLPFC and amygdala from pre to post training. The results from this initial effort will form the foundation for future studies examining affect labeling training as a bona fide treatment strategy for PTSD. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
• Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
• Stress Disorders, Traumatic

• NCT number: NCT05924399
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of California, Los Angeles
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: August 5, 2014
• Completion date: October 9, 2015