NCT05718271

Effects of Verbal Instructions on Fear Extinction and Extinction Retrieval

The Effects of Verbal Instructions on Fear Extinction and Extinction Retrieval in Patients With Anxiety Disorders and Healthy Controls

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 240 (actual)
• Sponsor: Ruhr University of Bochum · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The goal of this study is to examine if verbal instructions can improve fear extinction learning and extinction retrieval in patients with anxiety disorders (AD) and healthy controls.

Detailed description

Patients with anxiety disorders (AD) and highly anxious individuals show accelerated fear conditioning and diminished fear extinction learning (Duits et al., 2015). The aim of the current study is to investigate how verbal instructions impact fear extinction learning and extinction retrieval in AD patients and healthy controls. Using a 3-day fear conditioning paradigm, fear acquisition will take place on the first, extinction training on the second, and extinction retrieval and reinstatement on the third day (i.e., all phases are on consecutive days). Part of the participants will receive explicit instructions such that the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) won't be presented anymore, either before and/or after extinction training. Participants will be randomly assigned to four conditions: (1) no explicit instructions at all, (2) explicit instructions before extinction, (3) explicit instructions after extinction or (4) explicit instructions before and after extinction.

Conditions

• Anxiety Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Explicit instructions before extinction	"Shocks will no longer be administered during the next phase."
OTHER	Explicit instructions after extinction	"Tomorrow no shocks will be administered."

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-02-02
• Primary completion: 2024-08-14
• Completion: 2024-08-14
• First posted: 2023-02-08
• Last updated: 2024-09-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Germany