Anxiety Disorders and Symptoms, Social Anxiety Disorder
Conditions
Keywords
Social Anxiety, Threat processing, Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Brief 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.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALPerceptual 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.
BEHAVIORALGender 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.
Sponsors
Medical College of Wisconsin
Florida State University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Masking description
Participants were blind to their assigned condition.
Intervention model description
Participants were randomly assigned to either an active training group or a control group. The active participants completed 8 blocks of a perceptual training task, while the control group performed 8 blocks of a gender discrimination task that received the perceptual retraining protocol
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 35 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
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
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Behavioral Evidence for Categorical Perception Changes | Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days) | 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. |
| Neural Evidence for Categorical Perception Changes | Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days) | 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. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Social Anxiety Symptoms - Social Phobia Scale | Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days) | Change in social anxiety symptomatology through perceptual retraining |
| Social Anxiety Symptoms - Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale | Baseline to Study Completion (14 to 28 Days) | Change in social anxiety symptomatology through perceptual retraining |
Outcome results
None listed