NCT05261659

Targeted Memory Reactivation During REM Sleep in Patients With Social Anxiety Disorder

Using Sleep and Dreaming to Treat Social Anxiety

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 51 (actual)
• Sponsor: University Hospital, Geneva · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years – 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

With this study, the investigators aim to use sleep and dreaming in order to enhance exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder (SAD), by pairing the positive feedback phase of exposure (public talk) to an auditory stimulus during wake (associated sound) and subsequently applying this stimulus during sleep (targeted memory reactivation, TMR). Exposure therapy sessions will take place in a virtual reality (VR) environment, while physiological measures during the preparation phase of public talk such as heart rate variability (HRV), skin conductance response (SCR) and subjective level of anxiety (SUDS) will be used in order to assess treatment efficiency across the sessions. Patients with SAD according to DSM-5 criteria will be included. The main hypothesis of this study is that participants who are presented with the associated sound during sleep (TMR group) will have reduced intensity of social anxiety compared to participants with no such association (control group), after both a full night's sleep with auditory stimulation during REM sleep in the laboratory, and after 1 week of stimulation during REM sleep at home. In addition, it is expected that fear-related dreams may correlate with anxiety levels during wakefulness after 1 week of stimulation at home.

Conditions

• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Sleep

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure Therapy and Targeted memory reactivation during REM sleep	Emerging evidence shows that REM sleep plays a causal role in extinction learning, emotion regulation and consolidation of emotionally positive memories. By using targeted memory reactivation (TMR), a known method where a sound is associated with a waking experience (i.e., positive feedback in this study) and strengthening it during REM sleep, the investigators aim to accelerate the remission of social anxiety disorder.
BEHAVIORAL	Exposure Therapy	These patients will receive the classic treatment of Exposure Therapy (ET) for social anxiety disorder without any association with a sound.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-02-18
• Primary completion: 2022-02-06
• Completion: 2022-02-06
• First posted: 2022-03-02
• Last updated: 2022-03-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Switzerland