Fmri-based Neurofeedback With Anxious Adolescents Study

Summary

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to psychological problems, partly because of dramatic changes in the brain, along with changes in social interactions patterns as they move from childhood towards adulthood. One of the most common problems is anxiety, which affects up to 1 in 4 adolescents. Moreover, paediatric anxiety predicts lifelong persistent mental health problems, which are estimated to cost the UK taxpayer £8.6 billion annually. Young people with anxiety experience intense fears and worries, leading to problems with friendships, poor school performance, and long-term mental health difficulties. Research investigating how and why some young people develop anxiety is therefore critically needed so that strategies for early intervention can be developed.

This research will test the hypothesis that using a novel training intervention, - which teaches participants to change the way that their brain responds to emotional stimuli - will allow the investigators to influence response strategies while they are being established and possibly reduce the risk for anxiety in the long run. To achieve this, the investigators will test 50 adolescent females (aged 14-17 years) varying in anxiety levels to investigate whether brain responses in emotion regulation regions can be up/down regulated using fMRI-based neurofeedback.The rationale behind this research approach is that successful changes in brain response may then provide the participant with an additional, 'bodily' feeling of how respond to an emotional stimulus in real life situations, thereby paving the path towards the development of effective, age-appropriate intervention approaches.

Conditions

• Anxiety

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

questionnaires

Clinical questionnaires and behavioural computer-based paradigms, such as the Overlap task (Cohen Kadosh et al., 2014)

DEVICE

Functional magnetic resonance imaging w neurofeedback

The general framework of the scanning part of this experiment consists of a localiser task (lasting approximately 8 minutes), 4 neurofeedback runs (each lasting approximately 5 minutes) and an anatomical scan (approximately 10 minutes). Immediately prior and following the scanning session, participants will also be asked to completed several), as well as an attentional control task with emotional stimuli, such as a behavioural version of the Overlap task (Cohen Kadosh et al., 2014).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• King's College London

  collaborator OTHER

• Cardiff University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Oxford

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Kathrin ' Cohen Kadosh, PhD · University of Oxford

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-11-30

Primary Completion

2017-10-31

Completion

2017-10-31

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations