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Assessing Visual Processing in High Anxiety

NCT04187326 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 23

Last updated 2025-09-04

Study results available
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Summary

High trait anxiety, a stable personality trait, is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders. Individuals with high trait anxiety have difficulty differentiating safety from threat, including visual information like emotional faces. This study aims to characterize visual system function in high trait anxiety. A portion of this study involves an intervention. For the intervention portion, a subset of participants will be asked to return for a lab visit upon completing the first portion of the study (multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan). During this follow up visit, participants will complete a computer task that involves looking at faces and identifying emotions. Participants will complete this task either six months or twelve months after their MRI scan visit. Results from this research have the potential to inform novel therapies that target the visual system in individuals at risk for the development of psychiatric disorders.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Facial Microexpression Training

The METT is a well-validated task designed to improve perception of subtle changes in facial expressions, termed microexpressions. Participants with high trait anxiety will return to the lab approximately six months post scan visit to complete this computer-based task. They will receive feedback during the task on their accuracy.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

    collaborator NIH

  • University of Massachusetts, Worcester

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Elliot K Edmiston, PhD · Associate Professor

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
30 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-03-01
Primary Completion
2024-03-15
Completion
2024-03-15

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04187326 on ClinicalTrials.gov