NCT03547713

A Neuropsychological Characterization of Social Feedback Processing in Social Anxiety

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 58 (actual)
• Sponsor: Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center · Other Government
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to characterize neuropsychological mechanisms (positive affect, negative affect and self-evaluation) mediating processing of social feedback in people with different levels of social anxiety, by implementing functional and structural MRI.

Detailed description

Social anxiety (SA) disorder is a relatively widespread emotional disorder which is associated with considerable impairment in social, educational, and occupational functioning (Kessler et al., 2005). This condition is characterized by a debilitating preoccupation with the evaluation of the self by others, ultimately leading to excessive fear and avoidance of interpersonal encounters. As opposed to healthy individuals who typically process social feedback in a positively biased manner, Individuals with high levels of SA tend to evaluate the feedback conveyed by others negatively. Such biases have a profound contribution to the maintenance of social-related concerns (Clark \& Wells, 1995). Thus, the overreaching goal of this research is to provide a neuropsychological account of biased processing of social feedback evident in SA. To meet this goal, participants varying in their level of SA are asked to deliver a speech and evaluate it before and after receiving social feedback during an fMRI scan. Additional structural and resting-state fMRI scans, as well as physiological and psychological measures, are obtained throughout the experiment in order to explain individual differences in processing of feedback. fMRI tasks probing basic neuropsychological processes include a self-referential paradigm, wherein participants judge if different traits varying in valence and social domain (power vs. affiliation) are descriptive of them; a reward vs. punishment task, in which participants can win or lose money; and an emotional reactivity task, in which participants view faces with different emotional expressions. The long-term goal of this study is to better delineate both neurobiological and psychological models of SA, as well as to help in directing future neuromodulation-based treatments of mood and anxiety disorders.

Conditions

• Social Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Social feedback	Social feedback regarding performance of a public speech is delivered to participants
BEHAVIORAL	Self-referential paradigm	Exposure to traits varying in valence (positive vs. negative) and social domain (power vs. affiliation)
BEHAVIORAL	Reward vs. punishment task	Reception of monetary gains vs. losses
BEHAVIORAL	Emotional reactivity task	Exposure to emotional faces vs. shapes

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-03-02
• Primary completion: 2018-10-23
• Completion: 2018-10-23
• First posted: 2018-06-06
• Last updated: 2020-03-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Israel