NCT07364981

Gaze Contingent Attentional Reinforcement in Major Depressive Disorder

Gaze Contingent Attentional Reinforcement Treatment of MDD

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Tel Aviv University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The main objective of this randomized controlled trial is to evaluate whether a gaze-contingent feedback task using negative reinforcement can serve as an effective attention-modification procedure and contribute to the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

Detailed description

This randomized controlled trial uses a gaze-contingent attentional reinforcement task to modify attention allocation patterns to emotional stimuli in participants with Major Depressive Disorder. Specifically, participants will undergo 4 training sessions, during which either negative reinforcement (aversive white noise will be heard when gazing at sad faces) or positive reinforcement (music will be heard when gazing at happy faces) will be used to divert participants' gaze toward happy faces and away from sad faces. Depressive symptoms severity will be assessed before and after training (post-training and 3-month follow up) to examine changes (reduction) in symptom severity from before to after the intervention. Attention allocation will be assessed during training (i.e. online learning) as well as before and after training (i.e. transfer of learning).

Conditions

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Aversive white noise	Participants will receveve gaze-contingent negative-reinforcement feedback according to their viewing patterns, such that when gazing at the target stimuli (i.e., happy faces) the noise will stop.
BEHAVIORAL	Music reward	Participants will receive gaze-contingent music-reward according to their viewing patterns, such that when gazing at the target stimuli (i.e., happy faces) the music will play.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-01-01
• Primary completion: 2030-01-01
• Completion: 2030-01-01
• First posted: 2026-01-23
• Last updated: 2026-01-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Israel