NCT03414619

The Role of Cognitive Control in the Transdiagnostic Conceptualization of "Intrusive Thoughts"

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 75 (actual)
• Sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The investigators are examining whether difficulties with cognitive control (i.e., the ability to stop one's thought process and shift attention) is a common problem across three types of repetitive, negative thinking: obsessions (as seen in obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD), worries (as seen in generalized anxiety disorder, GAD), and ruminations (as seen in major depressive disorder, MDD).

Detailed description

The primary aims of this study are to utilize self-report and behavioral measures to examine whether cognitive control is a common factor across three types of repetitive negative thinking (RNT): obsessions in OCD, worries in GAD, and ruminations in MDD. Specifically, the investigators aim to test whether individuals with obsessions, worries, and depressive ruminations demonstrate impaired cognitive control on executive functioning neuropsychological tasks (i.e., response inhibition, set shifting, attentional disengagement) relative to individuals without any psychiatric diagnoses. Additionally, the investigators will examine whether these deficits are associated with self-report measures of RNT as well as in vivo responding during a laboratory paradigm designed to induce intrusive thinking. Findings could inform psychological treatment of these problematic intrusions using novel transdiagnostic approaches.

Conditions

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Major Depressive Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Cognitive Control Tasks and Script Driven Imagery	All participants will receive a structured diagnostic assessment and complete self-report questionnaires about cognitive factors and anxiety/mood symptoms. They then will complete a battery of neuropsychological executive functioning tasks on the computer, each of which measures a different facet of cognitive control (i.e., response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and attentional control). Finally, they will be guided through a standardized script-driven imagery paradigm that involves generating and listening to an individualized imaginal script associated with a moderately distressing intrusive thought. Self-report and psychophysiological data will be collected during this exercise.

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-05-18
• Primary completion: 2020-03-06
• Completion: 2020-03-06
• First posted: 2018-01-30
• Last updated: 2020-03-18

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States