A Novel Conditioning Approach to Counter Loneliness in Adults
ConditionLoneliness
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18+
SponsorEducation University of Hong Kong
About this trial
This study aims to test the efficacy of a 6-session conditioning paradigm by investigating the conditioning-induced change in the socio-affective processing, loneliness, depressive symptoms, and neural correlates of lonely adults.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
No histories of learning impairment, major psychiatric disorders or neurological disorders other than depression
Normal intelligence
At least primary school education
Disqualifiers
On medication or treatments within 2 weeks prior to the beginning of the study that would affect the individual's brain, cognitive and affective functions
Trial design
Design model
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
Evaluative Conditioning with positive stimuli
BehavioralIn the pre-conditioning phase, participants will be exposed to pictures that vary in their emotional (negative, positive) and social (non-social, social) content. For each picture, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive), degree of social motivation (between none to high) on Likert-scales. In the conditioning phase, emotional social pictures will be selected and paired with non-social positive stimuli for trials in random order, for 6 sessions across 3 weeks. In the post-conditioning phase, participants will be asked to evaluate the valence of the stimuli again similar to that in pre-conditioning phase.
Conditioning with neutral stimuli
BehavioralIn the pre-conditioning phase, participants will be exposed to pictures that vary in their emotional (negative, positive) and social (non-social, social) content. For each picture, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive), degree of social motivation (between none to high) on Likert-scales. In the conditioning phase, emotional social pictures will be selected and paired with with neutral non-social stimuli for trials in random order, for 6 sessions across 3 weeks. In the post-conditioning phase, participants will be asked to evaluate the valence of the stimuli again similar to that in pre-conditioning phase.
Treatment groups
136 Participants
are divided into 2 treatment groupsGroup A: Evaluative conditioning group with positive stimuliExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Group B: Control group with neutral stimuliActive comparator 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Self-reported loneliness
Loneliness is assessed based on the UCLA loneliness scale (Version 3), a 20-item 4-point Likert scale (score range 20 - 80) in which higher scores indicate greater degrees of loneliness.
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention2
Implicit loneliness
Implicit loneliness will be measured by Implicit Association Test about the relative strength of association between our participants' target concept 'Self' and attribute 'Lonely'.
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the interventionSecondary outcomes
1
Valence of social stimuli
For each stimuli, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived valence (between negative to positive) of the scenes on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly positive, 7 = strongly negative).
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention2
Social motivation towards social stimuli
For each stimuli, they are required to indicate their immediate perceived degree of social motivation (between none to high) of the scenes on a 7-point Likert scales (1 = no, 7 = very high).
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention3
Loneliness-related activation patterns and connectivity in neural networks
Neural connectivity in Default Mode Network, Ventral Attention Network, Frontoparietal Network are assessed by fMRI
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention4
Depressive symptoms
Depressive symptoms are assessed based on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, a 14-item scale assessing severity of depressive and anxiety symptom (score range 0 - 21 for both subscale), with higher scores indicating higher severity
Time frame
Baseline, immediately after, and 3 months after the interventionSponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Education University of Hong Kong
Lead sponsor
The University of Hong Kong
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov