An Attempt at Translating Novelty-enhanced Extinction of Context Conditioning From Rodents to Humans

NCT05150951 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 2021-03596
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 60
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

In rodents, novel exploration has been used to strengthen the consolidation of a variety of hippocampal-dependent learning tasks. To our knowledge, no attempt have been made to translate the effect of strengthening the memory of an extinction of a context conditioning memory. This study uses virtual reality for both context conditioning and novel exploration in an attempt at translating these findings from rodents to humans, thus, using novel exploration to strengthen an extinction memory. Threat responses are measured with skin conductance and startle responses. If this effect could be shown experimentally in humans, that experimental setup could become an important tool in understanding important memory processes of fear, such as reconsolidation and behavioral tagging.

Conditions

Healthy

Keywords

Threat conditioning; Virtual reality; Extinction; Behavioral tagging

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Physiological arousal response during reinstatement.

  Startle responses and skin conductance responses are used as measures of physiological arousal response.

  Day 3

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Physiological arousal response during extinction

  Day 2

• Physiological arousal response during threat conditioning

  Day 1

• Subjective fear ratings

  Day 1, 2 & 3.

• Subjective discomfort ratings

  Day 1, 2 & 3

Other Outcomes (4)

• Navigation success

  Day 2

• State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T)

  Day 2

• Generalized anxiety disorder 7 (GAD-7)

  Day 2

Study Arms (2)

Experimental group

EXPERIMENTAL

Novel exploration is used before extinction in an attempt to strengthen the extinction consolidation.

Behavioral: Novel Exploration; Behavioral: Threat conditioning; Behavioral: Extinction; Behavioral: Reinstatement

Control group

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants perform a control task (visual attention) instead of the novel exploration.

Behavioral: Threat conditioning; Behavioral: Extinction; Behavioral: Reinstatement; Behavioral: Visual attention control task

Interventions

Novel Exploration BEHAVIORAL

Exploration of a novel 3D-environment in virtual reality.

Experimental group

Threat conditioning BEHAVIORAL

Session 1. Threat conditioning to two different (CS+, CS-) virtual reality contexts (i.e rooms). One of these is paired with a mild electric shock. The context paired with the electric shock (CS+) is counterbalanced across participants. Participants are instructed that they may receive electrical shocks during the procedure.

Control group; Experimental group

Extinction BEHAVIORAL

Session 2. Participants are repeatedly exposed to the both contexts from session 1 (CS+, CS-), but no shocks are delivered.

Control group; Experimental group

Reinstatement BEHAVIORAL

Session 3. Participants are again repeatedly exposed to both contexts from session 1 (CS+, CS-), after a few shocks delivered in a neutral context.

Control group; Experimental group

Visual attention control task BEHAVIORAL

Session 2. A visual attention task used as a control task instead of novel exploration.

Control group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 50 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• Willing and able to provide informed consent and complete study procedures

You may not qualify if:

• Current psychiatric disorder.
• Current use of psychotropic medication
• Current use of neurological conditions

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Uppsala University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Uppsala University, deparmtent of Psychology

Uppsala, 75142, Sweden

Location

Related Publications (1)

• Moncada D, Ballarini F, Viola H. Behavioral Tagging: A Translation of the Synaptic Tagging and Capture Hypothesis. Neural Plast. 2015;2015:650780. doi: 10.1155/2015/650780. Epub 2015 Aug 25.

  PMID: 26380117 BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Extinction, Biological

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Biological Phenomena

Study Officials

• Thomas Ågren, PhD

  Uppsala University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Masking Details: Participants are never told which manipulation that is expected to affect the threat memory processes.
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 6, 2021
• First Posted: December 9, 2021
• Study Start: November 15, 2021
• Primary Completion: May 1, 2022
• Study Completion: May 1, 2022
• Last Updated: June 10, 2022

Record last verified: 2022-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: SAP, ICF
• Time Frame: Data will be available from completion of analysis and publication, and onwards.
• Access Criteria: Anonymous behavioural data, training material, Statistical Analysis plan, and informed consent form will be made public on the project site on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/4yjev/)

Locations

SE (1)