PTSD Neurofeedback · Regulating Pathological Neural Connectivity in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-03-15 → 2022-03-14
- EU contribution
- €174,167
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Regulating Pathological Neural Connectivity in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
The advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided unprecedented insights into specific brain networks that underlie psychological illness; however, these advances are not fully incorporated into current therapeutic approaches. Here, we implement state-of-the-art fMRI as a therapeutic tool in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This method involves using real-time fMRI and neurofeedback of brain signals in order to teach patients with PTSD to self-regulate pathological neural networks that are associated with their symptoms. Indeed, there is an urgent societal need for the development and rigorous testing of novel and efficacious personalized treatment interventions for PTSD. In response to this demand, the current innovation involves conducting a randomized clinical trial (RCT) that regulates abnormal neural connectivity patterns in patients with PTSD with the aim to reduce symptoms. It is clear that PTSD can be difficult to treat, and that current therapies are not always effective for all patients. Importantly, there is growing evidence to suggest that neurofeedback represents a novel adjunctive treatment in a wide range of other psychiatric disorders. The result of such scientific efforts could lead to a frontline, non-invasive, personalized treatment for PTSD. Taken together, the proposed innovation is both timely and in line with current European research trends and societal needs to decrease the economic resources required to support mental health treatment. The primary research objective is to investigate clinical symptom improvement among PTSD patients as a function of neurofeedback treatment. The secondary research objective is to examine the underlying neural mechanisms that mediate network regulation during neurofeedback, and in relation, examine how specific symptoms and individual differences predict regulation success with machine learning computations. Taken together, the goal of the current action is to develop a connectivity-based neurofeedback treatment protocol for PTSD and elucidate the key factors and symptoms that mediate such treatment success.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating and prevalent psychiatric illness that develops after exposure to a traumatic event, and involves symptoms of severe intrusive recollections and flashbacks related to the trauma, hyperarousal and reactivity, avoidance, and negative alterations in cognitions and mood. Indeed, patients with PTSD are characterized by decreased prefrontal cortex (PFC) regulation on hyperactive emotion generation regions, such as the amygdala and brainstem. Real-time fMRI neurofeedback allows for brain regions to be self-regulated through neuroimaging signal feedback. Recently, the experienced researcher has shown that learning to decrease amygdala activation via real-time fMRI neurofeedback leads to a normalization of pathological neural circuitry maintaining PTSD, which was negatively correlated to symptoms. Critically, however, an intervention has not yet been developed to directly target suboptimal connectivity between emotion regulation regions (PFC) and emotion generation regions (amygdala and brainstem), where an urgent need for novel treatment interventions exists particularly among individuals suffering from PTSD. The objective of the current proposal is to determine the treatment efficacy of increasing the strength of connectivity from the PFC to the amygdala and brainstem via a real-time fMRI neurofeedback randomized clinical trial (RCT). Here, connectivity signals will be relayed back to the participant in the scanner as a simple thermometer that changes as directed connectivity between brain regions-of-interest fluctuate. Participants will be asked to self-regulate the neural signal displayed by the thermometer in real-time during PTSD emotion induction paradigms. The proposed study has the potential to develop into a novel treatment for PTSD, and is in line with current European research trends and societal needs to decrease the economic resources required to support mental health treatment.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT WIEN · WienCoordinatorAustria
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union