Social Anxiety Virtual Reality Study

Terminated

• Conditions: Social Anxiety Disorder
• Interventions: Other: No intervention

• Registration Number: NCT04288180
• Lead Sponsor: Stanford University

Brief Summary

This project aims to validate a virtual reality paradigm that assesses maladaptive avoidance behavior in social anxiety disorder. It also aims to generate a significant scientific advance by testing the hypothesis that maladaptive avoidance maintains anxiety through disruptions in safety learning.

Detailed Description

Although occasional mild social anxiety is a common human experience, social anxiety disorder has a devastating impact on patients' lives, leaving them vulnerable to medical, psychiatric, and socioeconomic complications. A key feature of social anxiety disorder is avoidance of social and/or performance situations in which judgment and evaluation from others might occur. Reducing avoidance is therefore an important treatment goal.

Despite the importance of avoidance, however, it is very difficult to assess a patient's tendency to avoid. Many prior assessments of avoidance measure adaptive (i.e., helpful) avoidance, in which an individual learns to avoid a truly noxious stimulus. However, anxiety disorders are characterized by maladaptive avoidance, in which a relatively safe stimulus is avoided resulting in interference with the individual's goals. In this study, the first aim is to validate a virtual reality paradigm to measure maladaptive avoidance behavior in adults with social anxiety disorder. The second aim is to test whether maladaptive avoidance behavior relates to safety learning (measured by a fear extinction task).

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2020-01-15
• Study First Submitted: 2020-02-25
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-02-25
• Primary Completion: 2020-02-28
• Study Completion: 2020-02-28
• Study First Posted: 2020-02-28
• Status Verified: 2021-09
• Last Update Submitted: 2021-09-30
• Last Update Posted: 2021-10-08

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: TERMINATED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 4

Inclusion Criteria

• age 18+
• primary diagnosis of social anxiety disorder
• fluent spoken and written English
• able to provide informed consent

Read More

Exclusion Criteria

• history of manic episode, hypomanic episode, or psychosis
• moderate or severe substance use disorder in the past 12 months
• current major depressive episode greater than moderate severity (PHQ-9 score >14)
• high risk for suicide (>8 on the MINI Suicidality section and/or clinician judgment that immediate medical attention is necessary)
• general medical condition or impediment to vision, hearing, or motor function likely to interfere with assessments
• benzodiazepine use in the past 2 weeks
• cannabis use for anxiety management in the past 2 weeks

Read More

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Social Anxiety Disorder	No intervention	A group of adults with social anxiety disorder will be recruited for a psychological/behavioral research study.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Maladaptive Avoidance Behavior	Baseline	Latency (in milliseconds) to enter the quadrant of the avoidance task containing the image from the fear learning task

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Maladaptive Avoidance Behavior (2nd alternate measure)	Baseline	Amount of time (in milliseconds) with center of gaze on the image from the fear learning task
Maladaptive Avoidance Behavior (alternate measure)	Baseline	Amount of time (in milliseconds) spent in the quadrant of the avoidance task containing the image from the fear learning task

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Stanford University; 🇺🇸 Palo Alto, California, United States