Healthy, Neurofeedback
Conditions
Keywords
real-time neurofeedback, social support, mPFC
Brief summary
Randomized active-sham controlled between-subject real-time fMRI neurofeedback trial aiming to modulate activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to improve subjective negative anticipation.
Detailed description
A double-blinded, placebo-controlled, between-subject design will be employed in this study. In a randomized order, a total of 60 healthy subjects will be recruited and assigned to the experimental group (EG; N=30), which receives real feedback from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), or the sham control group (CG; N=30) which receives sham feedback from an unrelated brain region. Neurofeedback training consists of 1 baseline session without feedback (also as a localizer task), 4 training sessions with intermittent feedback and 1 transfer session without feedback. Each NF run includes 5 regulation blocks and 5 baseline blocks. Each trial starts with a jittered fixation cross (2\ 8 s), a modulation block (i.e. regulation or baseline; 30 s) without continous feedback, and a intermittent feedback period (4s) to display the mean activiation of the mPFC/control region during the regulation block compared with baseline block. Objectives are to determine (1) if subjects in the neurofeedback (NF) group can gain volitional control over the mPFC activation using imagined social support as regulation strategy, (2) whether successful increased modulation of the mPFC could improve negative anticipation and sense of control for future events .
Interventions
real-time fMRI neurofeedback training procedure running on the Turbo Brain voyager (TBV) 4.2 software (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands)
Sponsors
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
TRIPLE (Subject, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 35 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* -Healthy subjects without any past or present psychiatric or neurological disorders
Exclusion criteria
* History of brain injury * Psychiatric or Neurological Disorder * Contraindications for MRI * Regular use of psychotropic substances (medication, drugs)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Neural activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) based on blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal | 1 hour | Training-induced changes in mPFC activity will be assessed by analyzing BOLD-level activation of the mPFC |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Training-related changes in anticipated anxiety | 1 hour | Participants will be required to rate the anticipated anxiety of future events using a Likert Scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = not at all anxious) and 9 = very anxious). |
Countries
China
Contacts
CONTACTBenjamin Becker, Dr
Outcome results
None listed