The Effect of Emotional Working Memory Training on Reducing Depressive Symptoms

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Depressive Symptoms
• Interventions: Behavioral: Working memory training; Behavioral: Positive ABMT

• Registration Number: NCT04346771
• Lead Sponsor: Hunan Normal University

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to test whether emotional working memory training and attention bias modification training are an effective neurobehavioral therapy to improve depressive symptoms.That is whether emotional working memory training is superior to attention bias modification training or not in reducing depressive symptoms over 1 year after training.

Detailed Description

Attentional bias has been theorized to play a critical role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Attentional bias modification training (ABMT), an experimental paradigm that uses training to induce adaptive attentional bias, was developed to test the causal model and this has therapeutic implications in depression.To test the effect of ABMT on treatment of depressive symptoms, a randomized, double-blind, placebo and blank controlled trial is conducted in college students who are experiencing mild-to-severe symptoms of depression.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2019-12-18
• Status Verified: 2020-04
• Study First Submitted: 2020-04-12
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-04-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2020-04-12
• Study First Posted: 2020-04-15
• Last Update Posted: 2020-04-15
• Primary Completion: 2021-01-10
• Study Completion: 2021-01-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 31

Inclusion Criteria

Meet the major and mild depression disorder's criteria

Exclusion Criteria

bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or organic mental disorder; any concurrent psychotherapy; any concurrent psychotropic medication.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Maintaining Positive Working memory	Working memory training	Maintaining positive working memory training is based on visual positive works n-back task.In this training, positive words are presented on the pictures of happy face.According to the rules, subjects are required to identify whether the word present currently is as the same type as the word presented n before then click the keys correspondingly.Each training session contains 15 blocks which are consisted with 20+n trails.
Positive Attention Bias Modification	Positive ABMT	In the positive attention bias, there are 54 pairs of neutral-negative words, 27 pairs of which are used in the training group and 27 pairs of which are used in the placebo group. The word pairs in each group are repeated 8 times, with a total of 216 trial.Participants received 10 sessions over 2 weeks. 90% of the targets in the training group appear in the positive word position and 10% of the targets appear in the neutral word position.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Changes of depressive symptoms	pre-training, post-training(2 weeks after pre-training), follow-ups(1-week,2-week,4-week,7-week,3-month( booster pre-training), 4-month (booster post-training), 5-month,6-month,12-month after post-training)	Depression symptoms tested by clinicians using the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children (K-SADS)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Changes of self-reported depressive symptoms	pre-training, post-training(2 weeks after pre-training), follow-ups(1-week,2-week,4-week,7-week,3-month( booster pre-training), 4-month (booster post-training), 5-month,6-month,12-month after post-training)	Self-reported depressive symptoms assessed by Beck depression scale-second version (BDI-II)

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University; 🇨🇳 Changsha, Hunan, China