Summary

Eligibility
for people ages 18-70 (full criteria)
Healthy Volunteers
healthy people welcome
Location
at UCLA
Dates
study started
study ends around
Principal Investigator
by Anthony Jang, MD (ucla)

Description

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn how people respond to fear-related experiences in a virtual reality (VR) environment. The study will also look at how brain activity and body responses are connected to learning and memory of fear. To do so, we recruit individuals who are already implanted with a Responsive Neurostimulator (RNS) device for the treatment of epilepsy. This research may help improve our understanding of anxiety disorders and how to better treat them in the future.

The main questions it aims to answer are: 1) How do people learn to associate certain cues in VR with feelings of fear or safety? 2) What brain and body responses happen during fear learning?

Participants will: 1) Wear a virtual reality headset and experience different environments and sounds, 2) Have their brain activity, heart rate, and sweating measured, and 3) Receive safe, mild electrical pulses through the RNS device during the study to help study fear learning. Participants will attend one or more study sessions, each lasting about 3-4 hours.

Official Title

Intracranial Recording and Stimulation of the Human Hippocampal-Amygdala Circuit During Virtual Reality Fear Conditioning

Keywords

Anxiety and Fear, PTSD, Veteran, Anxiety Disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, Deep Brain Stimulation

Eligibility

You can join if…

Open to people ages 18-70

  • Male
  • Female
  • Between 18 and 70 years of age
  • Adequate visual and auditory acuity to allow neuropsychological testing
  • Have undergone surgical placement of NeuroPace RNS System for the treatment of epilepsy or post-traumatic stress disorder

You CAN'T join if...

Location

  • UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
    Los Angeles 5368361 California 5332921 90024 United States

Lead Scientist at University of California Health

  • Anthony Jang, MD (ucla)
    HS Clinical Instructor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Medicine. Authored (or co-authored) 8 research publications

Details

Status
accepting new patients by invitation only
Start Date
Completion Date
(estimated)
Sponsor
University of California, Los Angeles
ID
NCT07216222
Study Type
Interventional
Participants
Expecting 70 study participants
Last Updated