Virtual Reality and Concept of Control in the Treatment of Acrophobia

Summary

Virtual reality is currently used as a therapeutic strategy in common phobia as agoraphobia or acrophobia, since it permits to have a better control (on occurrence of events or on the environment) during the therapy than in "in vivo" therapy. Our hypothesis here is that we can improves the therapeutic effects of the virtual exposure by giving control to acrophobic patients during their exposure.

Conditions

• Phobic Disorders

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to anxiogenous environments

The anxiogenous environments are defined by several levels of possible anxiety classified progressively and independently by each patient at the beginning of the study. The exposure is applied during the 8 sessions for each of the arms "Exposure to anxiogenous environments (with or without control)".

OTHER

Imagery with functional MRI initial

Subjects will be submitted to 1 session of fMRI during their first visit, in order to identify and evaluate the activation of cerebral fields involved during the exposure to anxiogenous environments.

OTHER

Imagery with PET-scanner initial

Subjects will be submitted to 1 session of PET-scanner during their first visit, in order to measure the synaptic activity during the exposure to anxiogenous environments.

OTHER

Imagery with functional MRI final

Patients will be submitted to 1 session of fMRI during a follow-up visit, in order to identify and evaluate the activation of cerebral fields involved during the exposure to anxiogenous environments.

OTHER

Imagery with PET-scanner final

Patients will be submitted to 1 session of PET-scanner during a follow-up visit, in order to measure the synaptic activity during the exposure to anxiogenous environments.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France

  collaborator OTHER

• Qualissima

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Eric MALBOS, MD · Service hospitalo-universitaire de psychologie médicale de psychiatrie d'adultes du Pr Lançon - CHU Marseille

• Daniel MESTRE, PhD · DR2, UMR 6233 CNRS; Université de la Méditerranée; CRVM

• Stéphanie KHALFA, PhD · CR1, Institut des Neurosciences Timone, Marseille

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-04-30

Primary Completion

2017-06-30

Completion

2017-07-31

Countries

• France

Study Locations