Social Support and Enhanced Fear Extinction

NCT04565041 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 100

Last updated 2026-03-18

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

University of California, Los Angeles researchers will recruit healthy participants and anxious participants (those diagnosed with social anxiety disorder) age 18-55 years old to participate in a study examining whether the ability of social support figure reminders to enhance the extinction of fear in healthy participants extends to those with anxiety disorders.

After being recruited from the UCLA community (healthy participants, n = 50) or referred by treatment providers at the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at UCLA (anxious participants, n = 50) and undergoing a telephone screening and in-person screening, 100 participants will be enrolled in the study, with an expected recruited 150 to reach this number. During the experiment, all participants will undergo the same procedures: undergoing a fear extinction procedure in which threatening cues--cues that predict electric shock--will be paired with either an image of a social support figure (provided by participants) or an image of a smiling stranger. These pairings will be presented repeatedly in the absence of shock in order for fear extinction to occur. Participants will return for a follow-up test to determine if fear extinction was successful.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Social Support

Presence of an image of a social support figure (provided by participant) during a fear extinction procedure

Sponsors & Collaborators

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

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

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-02-01
Primary Completion
2026-07-01
Completion
2026-07-01

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

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 NCT04565041 on ClinicalTrials.gov