Mobile Virtual Positive Experiences for Anhedonia
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Conditions studied: Anhedonia, Virtual Reality, Depression, Mood Disorders, Stress, Anxiety
In brief
Anhedonia is a symptom dimension that characterizes many individuals suffering from depression, as well as some types of anxiety, psychosis, and substance use. For the most part, treatments are effective in decreasing negative affect but ineffective in improving anhedonia, with some antidepressant medications even worsening symptoms of anhedonia. Yet anhedonia is a significant marker of poor prognosis as well as suicidal ideation and actual suicide. The development of effective treatments for anhedonia is thus of paramount importance. Advances in neuroscience indicate specific targets that may underlie anhedonia that can be shifted through behavioral training. The investigators have developed such a program and found it to be effective in raising positive affect, especially for depressed or anxious individuals with anhedonia at baseline. To date, this program has been implemented by highly trained clinicians, which have supervised its implementation on a large scale. Moreover, the behavior program is dependent on readily available rewarding experiences, which anhedonia obviously challenges. Furthermore, mechanistic evaluation is impeded by intra¬- and inter-¬individual variability in exposure to rewarding stimuli. Virtual Reality (VR) offsets these barriers by repeated controlled immersion in experiences designed to enhance approach motivation, initial responsiveness to reward attainment, and reward learning. In this current study, the investigators aim to measure clinical outcomes using Virtual Reality-Reward Training (VR-RT).
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT03715400
- Run by
- University of California, Los Angeles
- People needed
- 74
- Starts
- 2018-09-01
- Expected to finish
- 2021-01-01
- Last updated by the study team
- 2020-12-11
Who can join
Age: 18 and older, up to 40. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.
You may qualify if…
- fluent in English
- below the population mean on either the Behavioral Activation Scale (BAS) Reward Drive subscale (score of ≤ 11), or BAS Responsiveness subscale (score of ≤16)
- score in mild-moderate range on DASS-21 following established score cutoffs: Depression (10-27); at least a score of Anxiety (8-14); and a score of at least Stress (15-25)
- Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS) overall score must be ≥ 6
- agree to refrain from initiating other psychosocial treatments throughout the duration of the study
You may not qualify if…
- Lifetime history of bipolar disorder, psychosis, intellectual disabilities, or organic brain damage
- substance use disorder in the past 6 months
- current use of psychotropic medications
- currently pregnant or planning to become pregnant
- self-reported frequent motion sickness, self-reported seizures within the last year and/or a diagnosis of epilepsy
Where it is running
- University of California, Los Angeles — Los Angeles, California, United States
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
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