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Neuroscience of Psychotherapy for Depression

NCT06696001 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 45

Last updated 2025-12-18

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The goal of this study is to learn the extent to which client-therapist brain activity may synchronize during a psychosocial intervention for depression symptoms.

The study will compare behavioral activation, a client-centered type of cognitive-behavioral therapy, to psychoeducation which delivers information on strategies to recover from depression symptoms.

Participants will answer questions about their mental and physical health, attend one psychosocial intervention session receiving either Behavioral Activation or Psychoeducation with simultaneous brain activity measurement and complete follow up surveys two weeks and one month following the intervention.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Psychoeducation

For the psychoeducation session, the focus is for the therapist to engage with the client regarding mental health broadly without a targeted effort to reinforce therapeutic alliance or to offer individualized guidance or techniques. The session will provide educational information on depression, depression symptoms and known causes, and strategies to reduce depression symptoms. The content will be delivered in a fashion to avoid individualization and psychotherapeutic exchange. The elements will focus on components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), differentiating between thoughts and feelings, common cognitive shortcuts, and the connection between behavior and emotion.

BEHAVIORAL

Behavioral Activation

Behavioral Activation (BA) is a psychotherapy treatment modality used for depression and focuses on replacing maladaptive coping mechanism that reinforce depressive symptoms with adaptive coping mechanisms to increase exposure to positive reinforcement. The treatment will consist of the following elements: Introduction to establish concept of positive reinforcement and build rapport, identification of client-centered values, individualized values-based activity planning and scheduling, and developing adaptive coping strategies for the future.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Foundation of Hope, North Carolina

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Flavio Frohlich · Carolina Center for Neurostimulation

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
30 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-04-11
Primary Completion
2026-06-01
Completion
2026-06-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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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 NCT06696001 on ClinicalTrials.gov