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The Neural Mechanisms of Imaginal Extinction

NCT05168592 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 87

Last updated 2024-08-26

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Imaginal exposure is a widely used and effective psychological treatment technique in which patients are exposed to fearful stimuli and situations using mental imagery. This study examines imaginal extinction, an experimental analogue of imaginal exposure that allows the study of this treatment technique under controlled circumstances. During imaginal extinction, conditioned fear is diminished through repeated exposure to mental imagery of the feared (conditioned) stimulus. The neural underpinnings of imaginal extinction is not known, and hence, this study examines neural activations during imaginal extinction using psychophysiology and brain imaging.

Conditions

  • Fear of Spiders

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Threat conditioning

Day 1: The participant is repeatedly shown two stimulus (CS+,CS-), one at a time. CS+ is paired with an electric shock. CS- acts as a control stimulus. The stimuli consist of photos of two different objects. Stimuli will be counterbalanced between participants.

BEHAVIORAL

Imaginal extinction

Day 1: Participants are repeatedly instructed to produce mental imagery of the two stimuli used during threat conditioning. Imagery is prompted through different written instructions presented in pseudo-randomized order on a screen. No shocks will be delivered.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Uppsala University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Thoma Ågren, PhD · Uppsala University

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

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

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-04-07
Primary Completion
2023-03-01
Completion
2023-03-01

Countries

  • Sweden

Study Locations

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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 NCT05168592 on ClinicalTrials.gov