Extrait

Background and study aims Faces play a key role in everyday life, and the accurate recognition of emotional content in faces is critical to social functioning. This is disrupted in a range of psychiatric disorders – for example, people with depression show a negative bias whereby they fail to identify happiness in faces. We have developed a new concept which targets the recognition of facial expression of emotions by initially assessing the threshold for detecting one emotion over another in an ambiguous (unclear) expression (e.g., a blend of happiness and sadness), and then providing feedback to shift this threshold (e.g., to favour identification of happiness over sadness). Preliminary results from adults recruited from the general population on the basis of high levels of depressive symptoms show that this manipulation of the perception of emotion in ambiguous facial expressions, designed to promote the perception of positive emotion over negative emotion, may have therapeutic (remedial) benefit which persists for at least two weeks. The present project aims to investigate brain responses during the emotion recognition training procedure in individuals with low mood. Who can participate? The study will recruit adults aged 18 and 40 years, either sex, from the general population who report high levels of depressive symptoms (defined as a score of 14 or more on the Beck Depression Inventory; BDI-ii). What does the study involve? The study will evaluate a computer-based training programme that is designed to modify recognition of ambiguous facial expressions, from seeing them as expressing sadness to seeing them as expressing happiness. This training is designed to promote the perception of positive emotion over negative emotion. The participants will be randomly allocated to either a treatment group, which will receive feedback designed to shift their recognition of ambiguous faces as displaying happiness rather than sadness, or a control group which will receive feedback not designed to shift their recognition. What are the potential benefits and risks of participating? Participants would not directly benefit from taking part in this research study. However, the information we get from this study may help us to understand the influence of emotion perception on low mood. There are no expected risks of taking part in this study. Where is the study run from? The study will be run in the School of Experimental Psychology, 12a Priory Road, University of Bristol and CRIC Bristol, University of Bristol (UK) When is the study starting and how long will it be expected to run for? November 2012 to May 2013 Who is funding the study? Medical Research Council (UK) Who is the main contact? Dr Sally Adams [email protected]

Critère d'inclusion

• Low mood / depression

Liens

• ictrp
• isrctn