PTSD Affect Labeling Study

Summary

The overall goal of this study is to use fMRI and psychophysiological measures to investigate a novel strategy involving "Affect Labeling" for improving emotion regulation in PTSD that could lead to a new treatment regimen for PTSD.

Our project has two specific aims. First, the investigators aim to identify a novel neural target for possible PTSD intervention by verifying that RVLPFC-based inhibitory processing is impaired in PTSD. Second, the investigators will examine whether repeated practice with a simple cognitive-emotional task that requires inhibitory processing, namely, affect labeling, can strengthen the RVLPFC's ability to down-regulate emotional responses and physiological reactivity in PTSD and thereby form the basis of a novel treatment strategy to be developed in future studies. Secondary objectives are to examine the extent to which RVLPFC-based inhibitory impairments in PTSD are specific to trauma-relevant emotional processing (i.e., trauma-related distress) or extend to other types of inhibitory regulation in general, which would have implications for the future study of inhibitory-enhancement-based interventions for PTSD.

Conditions

• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Affect Labeling Training

(1) Participants will view combat-relevant images and then label the image or how they feel while viewing the image. (2) Participants will view facial expressions and then label the image. (3) Participants will view negative combat- irrelevant images (such as snakes or spiders) and then label the image or how they feel while viewing the image. (4) Participants will complete Go-NoGo trials similar to the fMRI Go-NoGo task described above. Participants will receive all four types of inhibitory training.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Defense Group, Inc.

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

  collaborator FED

• University of California, Los Angeles

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lisa J Burklund, PhD · University of California, Los Angeles

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-08-05

Primary Completion

2015-10-09

Completion

2015-10-09

Countries

• United States

Study Locations