Emotional Perceptual Training as a Treatment for Social Anxiety: Behavioral and Neural Evidence.

Social Anxiety Disorder Clinical Trial

— PTL  

Official title:

Emotional Perceptual Training as a Treatment for Social Anxiety: Behavioral and Neural Evidence.

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03437317
• Other study ID #: PTL-2017.21521
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: February 6, 2018
• Last updated: February 12, 2018
• Start date: November 1, 2014
• Est. completion date: December 15, 2016

Study information

• Verified date: February 2018
• Source: Florida State University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The Perceptual Training Study is a series of studies performed with the purpose of identifying a potential avenue for treatment of mood disorders, particularly anxiety-based mood disorders. The underlying theme is that neural representations may be threat-oriented, and may also be generalized to non-threatening cues by means of similarity to threatening representations. These may result in anxiety symptoms from innocuous cues. The idea behind the perceptual training is to create a divorce between the threat representations and cues which should be considered non-threatening, enhancing perceptual acuity and potentially reducing anxiety symptoms.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 154
• Est. completion date: December 15, 2016
• Est. primary completion date: December 15, 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 35 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Right-handed

• Normal or corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion Criteria:

• History of a diagnosed neurological or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - IV Axis I disorder

• Currently taking prescribed psychoactive drugs, including anti-depressants or anxiolytics.

• Having electrically, magnetically, or mechanically activated implants (e.g. cardiac pacemakers), due to incompatibility with MRI and MEG systems.

• Pregnancy or suspected pregnancy

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Anxiety Disorders
• Anxiety Disorders and Symptoms
• Disease
• Phobia, Social
• Social Anxiety Disorder

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Perceptual Retraining
Participants viewed faces varying in their expression of anger and were asked to identify if the face was angry or neutral via button press. Participants were provided with feedback if their categorization of the face as neutral or angry was correct. Each participant was assigned 4 levels of angry faces based on their decision point of anger detection in faces. Faces were selected based on the closest existing anger morph to the category boundary; for example, a decision point of 40% anger was closest to the 38% anger face, and so the faces used would have been 17%, 31%, 45%, and 59% anger. For this example, responses of "neutral" to the 31% angry face would be marked as correct, whereas a similar response to the 45% angry face would be incorrect, as it was above their decision point.
• Gender Discrimination
Participants viewed faces varying in their expression of anger and were asked to identify if the face was male or female via button press.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Florida State University	Medical College of Wisconsin

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Behavioral Evidence for Categorical Perception Changes	Participants will be asked to respond if they detected anger in faces varying in their levels of anger expression. This task is used to determine a perceptual bias for threat/anger in faces that is related to increases in social anxiety symptoms, and assess for improvements in the categorization of angry vs. neutral faces. that align with modulations of neural responses (MEG and EEG evidence) indexing perceptual processing of the faces following perceptual retraining.	Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days)
Primary	Neural Evidence for Categorical Perception Changes	Neural activity will be recorded using EEG and MEG to measure neural processes underpinning categorical perception of anger in faces. Changes in this neural perceptual index will be assessed following perceptual retraining to provide a neural mechanism underpinning behavioral improvements in perceptual categorization and subsequent reductions in anxiety.	Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days)
Secondary	Social Anxiety Symptoms - Social Phobia Scale	Change in social anxiety symptomatology through perceptual retraining	Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days)
Secondary	Social Anxiety Symptoms - Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale	Change in social anxiety symptomatology through perceptual retraining	Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days)