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Cognitive Control Emotion Training to Prevent Major Depression in Youth At-Risk

NCT04346784 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 110

Last updated 2026-08-10

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if intervention of positive emotion working memory (PEWM), or negative emotion working memory (NEWM), or positive attention bias training (PABT) can prevent major depressive disorder (MDD) for the long-term effects of intervention in youth with depressive symptoms or with remitted MDD. The main questions it aims to answer are:

* Does intervention PEWM, NEWM or PABT lower the MDD onset in youth with depressive symptoms or with remitted MDD?
* How long does the intervention PEWM, NEWM or PABT can lower the MDD onset when taken an initial training added one booster training?
* Which cognitive factors can predict MDD onset?

Researchers will compare PEWM, NEWM, PABT to a placebo (a training that contains no active component) to see if the interventions work to prevent MDD.

Participants will:

* Take a PEWM, or a NEWM, or a PABT or a placebo nearly every day for 2 weeks with 10 sessions at initial.
* Take a PEWM, or a NEWM, or a PABT or a placebo the day after tomorrow for 2 weeks with 8 sessions at 6 months follow-up.
* Be interviewed by clinicians with standardized diagnostic schedules for affective disorders and schizophrenia for 5 years
* Answer survey questions about depression-related symptoms for 5 years.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

positive emotion working memory(PEWM) training

Participants take 10 sessions of positive emotion working memory training with n-bak task of positive words for two-week at itinal and 8 booster sessions at 6 months follow-up.

BEHAVIORAL

negative emtion working memory(NEWM) training

Participants take ten 16 × (21 + n) trial sessions of NEWM with dual n-back task with sad facial pictures for visual modality and sad words for auditory modality for 2 weeks at initial and 8 booster sessions for 2 weeks at 6 months follow-up.

BEHAVIORAL

PABT

Participants take ten 216-trial sessions of PABT with 90% probe dot fallen on positive words for 2 weeks and eight 216-trial booster sessions for 2 weeks at 6 months follow-up.

BEHAVIORAL

placebo (NABT)

Participants take ten 216-trial sessions of placebo training with 90% probe-dot fallen on neutral concrete words for 2 weeks at initial and 8 booster sessions for 2 weeks at 6 month follow-up.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Hunan Normal University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Wenhui Yang, Ph.D · Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
TRIPLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
16 Years
Max Age
21 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-10-15
Primary Completion
2025-04-24
Completion
2025-05-30

Countries

  • China

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 NCT04346784 on ClinicalTrials.gov