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Investigators are conducting this study to test if temporarily and non-invasively stimulating the brain will affect the emotional response to stress in healthy participants. Participants will perform a series of tasks while completing an MRI scan. After this, participants will be randomized to undergo transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at two visits, undergoing active stimulation at one visit and undergoing 'sham' stimulation at another visit. Immediately following both stimulation sessions, participants will repeat the tasks during MRI scanning.
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) not only exact a heavy toll on patients, they also impose an enormous emotional, physical, and financial burden on unpaid, often family, caregivers. The strain of providing care for a loved one diagnosed with AD, often across several years, is associated with elevated depression risk and poorer overall health. Emotion regulation skills represent an ideal target for psychological intervention to promote healthy coping in ADRD caregivers. The project seeks to use an experimental medicine approach to test the efficacy and biobehavioral mechanisms of a novel, relatively brief, targeted, scalable, smartphone-based cognitive emotion regulation intervention aimed at improving psychological outcomes (i.e., reducing perceived stress, caregiver burden, and depressive symptoms) in ADRD unpaid primary caregivers as well as examine potential benefits of the caregiver intervention on quality of life in care recipients. Cognitive reappraisal is the ability to modify the trajectory of an emotional response by thinking about and appraising emotional information in an alternative, more adaptive way. Reappraisal can be operationalized via two primary tactics: psychological distancing (i.e. appraising an emotional stimulus as an objective, impartial observer) and reinterpretation (i.e., imagining a better outcome than what initially seemed apparent). The project will investigate the efficacy and underlying biobehavioral mechanisms of a novel, one-week cognitive reappraisal intervention in this population, with follow-up assessments at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 3 months. ADRD unpaid primary caregivers will be randomly assigned to receive training in either distancing, reinterpretation, or a no regulation natural history control condition, with ecological momentary assessments of self-reported positive and negative affect, remotely- collected psychophysiological health-related biomarkers (i.e., heart rate variability data) using pre-mailed Polar H10 chest bands, and health-related questionnaire reports. Distancing training is expected to result in longitudinal reductions in self-reported negative affect, longitudinal increases in positive affect, and longitudinal increases in HRV that are larger than those attributable to reinterpretation training and no-regulation control training.
In this study, the investigators will recruit young adults (ages 18-25 years) with elevated anxiety/depression symptoms and sleep disturbance. Participants will complete two overnights in a sleep lab. During one of the overnights, slow-wave activity will be enhanced by delivering sub-arousal auditory tones during slow-wave sleep using a headband device (Philips SmartSleep or Dreem 2). During the other overnight, tones will not be administered. Cognitive and emotional processes will be evaluated using behavioral task performance, self-report, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After the second overnight, participants will take the headband device home and wear it every night for approximately 2 weeks. For half of the participants, the headband will play tones every night and, for the other half, the headband will not play tones. Participants will then return for a final testing visit in which cognitive and emotional processes and anxiety/depression symptoms will be assessed using behavioral task performance and self-report.
Assess the impact of a remote, app-delivered digital meditation intervention on emotional well-being of lonely older adults. Neuroimaging, electrophysiological (EEG), and autonomic physiology will be used to assess the neural correlates of the intervention. EEG and autonomic physiology will be collected while participants watch 30 min of an awe-inspiring movie. fMRI and autonomic physiology will be collected in the context of a social exploration/exploitation task.
The study is designed to investigate the impact of three nights of sleep restricted to 4 hours per night, on the processing and regulation of emotional information compared to Insomnia Disorder and control. The investigators will address and attempt to answer two questions. (i) How do three nights of reduced sleep or a diagnosis of Insomnia Disorder affect the processing and regulation of emotional information compared to typical, undisturbed sleep? (ii) What overlapping and distinct neural mechanisms are engaged and associated with behavioral effects when attempting to process and regulate emotions in a sleep restricted state or with a clinical diagnosis of Insomnia Disorder? This study will investigate sleep's role in emotion processing and regulation. The findings will help further understanding of the role of sleep in healthy emotional functioning.
To further understand the impact of acute sleep deprivation and recovery sleep on the processing of emotional information the investigators will address and attempt to answer three questions, (i) how both undisturbed sleep and sleep deprivation affect the processing and retrieval of emotional information, (ii) what neural and psychophysiological mechanisms are associated with these behavioral effects, and (iii) to explore the ability of recovery sleep to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation. Together, these studies will provide a greater breadth and depth of knowledge concerning sleep's role in emotion processing and regulation. Given the growing societal tendency to view sleep as unproductive-foregoing it to lengthen work days and increase social opportunities- such knowledge would be of practical importance for understanding the role of sleep in healthy emotional functioning, particular for individuals experiencing periods of increased stress and emotional distress (e.g., new parents, hospital staff, or combat troops).
This early-phase trial will test intervention strategies to influence implicit attitudes towards physical activity and determine whether changes in those mechanisms result in change in physical activity behavior among inactive adults who are overweight or obese.
Childhood cancer survivors are at risk for accelerated aging due to the specific treatments they have received to cure their cancer. Several interventions, including exercise, cognitive training, and mindfulness practice, have been developed and studied for effectiveness among participants in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort (SJLIFE) to mitigate these effects. The interventions offered thus far have not included two components at the same time. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not adult cancer survivors enrolled in SJLIFE will participate in two interventions at the same time. The combined interventions will include exercise plus cognitive training or exercise plus mindfulness practice. Each intervention will be conducted over a 12-week period. Participants will also be asked to complete follow-up testing after the 12-week intervention period is completed. Primary Objectives • To determine the acceptability of a two-component intervention (exercise (EX) plus cognitive training (CT) or exercise (EX) plus mindfulness practice (MP)) among survivors of childhood cancer with either cognitive impairment or emotional distress. Hypotheses: * 45% of those approached for participation in each arm of this study will enroll on the study. * Among those who enroll, 70% will complete the follow-up testing at 12 weeks. * Among those who completed the follow-up testing, the mean attendance to the intervention sessions will be 70% on each of their two interventions. That is, they will complete 70% of exercise sessions and 70% of either cognitive training or mindfulness practice. * To identify barriers and facilitators to intervention adherence. Hypotheses: * Participants will identify features of the study processes that either facilitate or discourage adherence. * Participants will identify features of the intervention technology and intervention components that either facilitate or discourage adherence. * Participants will identify personal factors that facilitate or discourage adherence.
The EASE program is an existing, evidence-based program/intervention (originally developed by the WHO), and this study is limited to evaluating the local implementation of this program. The aims of this pilot study are to: * Assess the acceptability and feasibility of training and supervision of EASE Helpers (community staff members) through an adapted EASE training. * Evaluate possible problems of recruitment, intervention delivery, and participant retention. * Assess the feasibility of EASE being delivered via a partnership between researchers and community members. * Evaluate implementation of EASE via the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) framework A mixed-methods design with qualitative and quantitative approaches will be used to assess these objectives.
Using the efficacious iTRAC intervention to enhance emotion regulation competencies as a foundation, this study will create and test iTRAC-HERO to teach emotion regulation skills in the context of sexual health education.