Loneliness
Conditions
Brief summary
This study aims to test the efficacy of a 6-session conditioning paradigm by investigating the conditioning-induced change in the socio-affective processing, loneliness, depressive symptoms, and neural correlates of lonely adults.
Detailed description
Potential participants will first be invited to complete a loneliness questionnaire online. Lonely adults will then be invited to undergo further screening. At baseline prior to the intervention training sessions, participants will first complete tests and questionnaires on loneliness, mood and depressive symptoms in addition to other socio-affective measures, and they will also be invited to receive resting-state functional MRI scanning in a 3T MRI scanner. Participants will then be allocated to one of the two intervention arms (the evaluative conditioning, and the control) in a randomized fashion with approximately half in each group. They will then complete the pre-conditioning phase of the allocated intervention arm, and their ratings on the stimuli presented during this phase will be assessed. In the conditioning phase, they will be invited to attend 6 sessions. After completing the conditioning phase, participants will be invited to complete the post- conditioning phase, providing ratings on the stimuli like the pre-conditioning phase. Immediately after, and also 3 months after, participants will be invited to complete again tests and questionnaires on loneliness, mood and depressive symptoms in addition to other socio-affective measures, and they will also be invited to receive resting-state functional MRI scanning in a 3T MRI scanner.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALEvaluative Conditioning with positive stimuli
In the pre-conditioning phase, participants will be exposed to pictures that vary in their emotional (negative, positive) and social (non-social, social) content. For each picture, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive), degree of social motivation (between none to high) on Likert-scales. In the conditioning phase, emotional social pictures will be selected and paired with non-social positive stimuli for trials in random order, for 6 sessions across 3 weeks. In the post-conditioning phase, participants will be asked to evaluate the valence of the stimuli again similar to that in pre-conditioning phase.
BEHAVIORALConditioning with neutral stimuli
In the pre-conditioning phase, participants will be exposed to pictures that vary in their emotional (negative, positive) and social (non-social, social) content. For each picture, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive), degree of social motivation (between none to high) on Likert-scales. In the conditioning phase, emotional social pictures will be selected and paired with with neutral non-social stimuli for trials in random order, for 6 sessions across 3 weeks. In the post-conditioning phase, participants will be asked to evaluate the valence of the stimuli again similar to that in pre-conditioning phase.
Sponsors
Education University of Hong Kong
The University of Hong Kong
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* No histories of learning impairment, major psychiatric disorders or neurological disorders other than depression * Normal intelligence * At least primary school education
Exclusion criteria
* On medication or treatments within 2 weeks prior to the beginning of the study that would affect the individual's brain, cognitive and affective functions
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Self-reported loneliness | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | Loneliness is assessed based on the UCLA loneliness scale (Version 3), a 20-item 4-point Likert scale (score range 20 - 80) in which higher scores indicate greater degrees of loneliness. |
| Implicit loneliness | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | Implicit loneliness will be measured by Implicit Association Test about the relative strength of association between our participants' target concept 'Self' and attribute 'Lonely'. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Valence of social stimuli | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | For each stimuli, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive) of the scenes on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly positive, 7 = strongly negative). |
| Social motivation towards social stimuli | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | For each stimuli, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived degree of social motivation (between none to high) of the scenes on a 7-point Likert scales (1 = no, 7 = very high). |
| Loneliness-related activation patterns and connectivity in neural networks | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | Neural connectivity in Default Mode Network, Ventral Attention Network, Frontoparietal Network are assessed by fMRI |
| Depressive symptoms | Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention | Depressive symptoms are assessed based on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, a 14-item scale assessing severity of depressive and anxiety symptom (score range 0 - 21 for both subscale), with higher scores indicating higher severity |
| Daily loneliness | Through study completion, on average of 4 months | Daily loneliness is assessed based on a 5-minute self-report on a Likert scale |
Countries
Hong Kong
Contacts
CONTACTNichol ML Wong, PhD
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORNichol ML Wong, PhD
Education University of Hong Kong
Outcome results
None listed