Reconsolidation and EMDR

University of Zurich (UZH)

Status: Completed

Conditions: PTSD

Treatments: Behavioral: Undelayed Bilateral Eye Movement; Behavioral: Delayed Bilateral Eye Movements

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02572830

F-86401-09-01

Details and patient eligibility

About

Blocking of reconsolidation by pharmacological or behavioral means offers the therapeutic possibility of weakening traumatic memories in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Two reconsolidation-based interventions, propranolol and extinction learning, have been shown to weaken fear memories in human healthy subjects. However, the success of these interventions seems to be limited to weak conditioned fear memories. This calls for new, potentially more efficacious, interventions to be tested. Bilateral eye movements seem to be a promising candidate intervention for blocking reconsolidation due to the compelling evidence of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing as effective treatment in PTSD. The investigators' aim is to test bilateral eye movements as an active reconsolidation-blocking intervention in an optimized differential fear conditioning procedure that the investigators have recently developed. This novel experimental assay creates stronger fear memories in healthy individuals.

Enrollment: 160 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 60 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Male or female between 18 years and 60 years of age
• Presence of a manageable, nonphobic fear of spiders as determined by scores above the mean (male: 8.06; female: 10.46) on the German adapted Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ; 38) and phobia criteria extracted from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Axis I Disorders (SCID-I; 39)
• Signed Informed Consent after being informed

Exclusion criteria

• Current or past neurological or other medical condition affecting the brain
• Current use of any medication (except contraceptives, herbal medicine)
• Known or suspected non-compliance, drug or alcohol misuse
• Presence of any current psychiatric disorders determined by the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI; 40)
• Inability to follow the procedures of the study, e.g. due to language problems
• No SC response to physical (Valsalva maneuver), psychological (mental arithmetic) and/or auditive (handclapping) stressor

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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160 participants in 2 patient groups

Delayed Bilateral Eye Movements

Experimental group

Description:

Delayed Bilateral Eye Movements after reactivation of fear-memory.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Delayed Bilateral Eye Movements

Undelayed Bilateral Eye Movements

Active Comparator group

Description:

Undelayed Bilateral Eye Movements after reactivation of fear-memory.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Undelayed Bilateral Eye Movement