View clinical trials related to Attention.
Filter by:Despite decades of research, current psychological treatments designed to treat a variety of mental illnesses are not effective for all who receive them. Specifically, well-supported treatments for mental illnesses that involve fear (e.g., PTSD, panic) appear to be effective for the majority of individuals, but consistently leave a group of "treatment non-responders." One potential explanation for the observed discrepancy in treatment response may be the focus of modern psychotherapies on relieving symptoms specific to categorical diagnoses, rather than mechanisms underlying why the individual is experiencing the symptoms. Recently, fear-based psychological disorders (e.g., PTSD, specific phobia, panic disorder, social anxiety) have been identified as sharing a distinct set of biomarkers, including genetic biomarkers of acute fear (i.e., fear in the moment) and impairments in controlling attention. Neurobehavioral interventions are therefore a promising class of treatments designed to target the biological markers that may be maintaining the symptoms of various psychological disorders. The Attention Training Technique (ATT) is a neurobehavioral intervention that has garnered attention through its demonstrated effectiveness in reducing symptoms across a variety of psychological diagnoses. While grounded in well-established theory, the mechanisms of change in ATT are largely unknown. One proposed mechanism may be that ATT promotes functional connectivity between regions in the brain implicated in top-down executive control over attention (ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC] and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]) and bottom-up attention networks (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex [dACC] and amygdala), resulting in increased top-down regulation of potentially problematic bottom-up attentional processes. The same brain regions implicated in both top-down and bottom-up attentional processes have also been associated with fear responding (i.e., startle response) and fear learning (i.e., how quickly one learns that a stimuli is safe or to be feared). Taken together, the research suggests that acute fear responding may be decreased through increased executive control over attention through engagement in ATT. The proposed randomized clinical trial will test whether a self-administered brief neurobehavioral intervention (ATT) to increase attentional control will decrease acute fear responding, and whether this change is associated with increased ability to handle attentional interference, an ability associated with normative dACC functioning and measured by behavioral proxy in this study via the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT). It is expected that those who engage in ATT will show greater attentional control efficiency, which will decrease their acute fear response. It is also expected that those who engage in ATT will also show lower sensitivity to attentional interference (measured through the MSIT) and will exhibit decreases in their reported fear as their attentional control increases over the course of the intervention. Additionally, it is expected that the intervention (ATT) will indirectly decrease symptoms of categorical fear-based psychological diagnoses through the identified biomarkers (i.e., attentional control, attentional interference sensitivity, acute fear response) to decrease reported symptoms.
The study is aimed at comparing the differential effects of two widely used standardized meditation programs: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) in general population samples. To address this goal, the effects will be measured by self-report questionnaires belonging to different domains (mindfulness, compassion, well-being, psychological distress, and psychological functioning) as well as information processing measures (i.e., Attentional Blink), and psychophysiological measures (EEG and EKG). Changes will be assessed immediately after finishing the 8-week programs and through several inter-session assessments. Data analysis will include the mean change scores differences, as well as novel network analysis procedures to assess topological reorganization of constructs derived from the programs.
Previous observational studies have reported an association between higher air pollution exposure and lower attention in children. With this project, the investigators aim to confirm this association in adolescents using an experimental design. In addition, the study will assess the relationship between air pollution exposure and individual preferences with respect to risk, time and social considerations. High school students in 3rd grade (ESO, 14-15 years of age) in different high schools in the Barcelona province (Spain) will be invited to participate. For each class in each high school, participating students will be randomly split into two equal-sized groups. Each group will be assigned to a different classroom where they will complete several activities during two hours, including an attention test (Flanker task) and a reduced version of the Global Preferences Survey. One of the classrooms will have an air purifier that will clean the air. The other classroom will have the same device but without the filters, so it will only re-circulate the air without cleaning it. Students will be masked to intervention allocation. The investigators hypothesize that students assigned to the clean air classroom will have better scores in the attention test, and that decision-making will also present differences in the two classrooms.
Shift work in nursing has been found to result in sleep disruption and sleep deprivation, and in sleepiness or fatigue at work. Slow reaction, insufficient attention and poor judgement often come with increased fatigue, which contributes to a high risk of accident and patient safety. Studies have shown that aerobic exercise is helpful in promoting high sleep quality. The study is conducted a prospective parallel randomized trial is performed to 60 nurses with low sleep quality. The subjects are randomly assigned to: (i) the experimental group, in which aerobic exercise training is given; (ii) the control group, in which the subjects kept their original lifestyles. The study aims to investigate the effects of aerobic exercise training on nurses' sleep quality, fatigue, attention and cortisol profile.
The investigators hypothesize that walking on a nature trail will lead to greater reductions in stress and greater improvements in the capacity to direct attention as compared to walking on a suburban sidewalk. The effects of walking in these different locations will be measured using physiological and psychological outcomes. The study design is a randomized with-in person cross-over trial. Subjects will take six 50-minute walks, one walk per week for six weeks. Three walks will occur in the urban setting and three in the nature setting. The order of the conditions will be randomly assigned to each subject, so that half of the subjects will complete the urban walks first and half the subjects will complete the nature walks first. There will be a two-week washout period between the two sets of walks. Day of the week will be fixed within person, and walks will occur during the mild weather months. In the case of inclement weather, the weekly walk will be skipped and an additional week will be added to the schedule. Limiting the frequency to one walk per week maximizes feasibility of the protocol and minimizes training effects, with any training effects over time being handled primarily by randomization (condition order is balanced), but also in the statistical analysis.
Meditation skills, or paying attention to internal mental states, are thought to improve people's health. This study is developing a new brain measure of meditation skills, called the EMBODY Task, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The investigators are testing whether pattern recognition methods can be applied to fMRI data to identify mental states during meditation, including attention to the body and to thoughts. This task is being developed in meditation practitioners and non-meditators. The goal is to understand what people are paying attention to during meditation using brain data. The investigators hypothesize that pattern recognition technology will be able to identify different mental states that occur during meditation.
The investigators are interested in finding accessible interventions for youth and young adults that help promote long-term positive mental health functioning. They will be investigating the effects of Team Unbreakable, a 13-week, twice weekly running group, on mental health symptoms, memory, and attention. This intervention will hopefully improve mental health functioning in youth aged 17-25 that are at high risk of developing mental health disorders. Sessions will consist of 30 minutes of running under the supervision of group leaders and coaches. The group will steadily increase the distance and time spent running versus walking, with the goal of having everyone run a 5 km race together at the end of 13 weeks. Once a week, youth will be provided with education on a variety of topics related to health and running. Youth will complete measures before, during, and after the program to assess outcomes.
This research study examines the feasibility of using an in-vehicle mobile technology monitoring system to measure teen secondary task engagement during on-road driving as the outcome measure for a web-based intervention to prevent risky driving in novice teen drivers.
The specific aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of a web-based intervention to prevent risky driving with teen drivers licensed in the previous 90 days.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether caffeine improves attention.