Stress Clinical Trials

Background: Negative emotional states can affect a person s behavior as they make decisions. For example, hunger may make people more impatient; they may then make riskier choices. Other negative emotional states that can change behavior include stress, pain, and sadness. By learning more about how emotions affect thinking and behavior in healthy people, researchers hope to better understand how to identify and treat people with mental disorders. Objective: To learn how negative emotions affect the brain and decision-making behavior. Eligibility: Healthy people aged 18 to 55 years. Design: Participants will have 3 clinic visits in 3 weeks. Participants will fill out questionnaires. They will be asked about their personal history, their personality, and state of mind. For 2 visits, participants will be assigned to different groups. Each group will experience 1 type of emotional stressor: Some participants will watch a video. Some will have to do arithmetic problems. Some will have heat applied to an arm or leg. Some will experience cold by immersing their hand in ice water. For a snack craving test, some will be tempted by food after a 4-hour fast. During these tests, participants will have sensors attached to their bodies. They will be videotaped. Saliva samples will be collected. After the stressors, participants will do tasks on a computer. They will need to make choices. Some participants will perform these decision-making tasks while lying in a brain scanner for functional magnetic resonance imaging. The brain scan involves lying on a table that slides into a cylinder that takes images of the brain. ... Read Less

This pilot study aims to evaluate the effects of a 10-week online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on stress and inflammatory outcomes in a sample of emerging adults with a history of early life adversity. 15 participants (ages 18-29) with a history of childhood trauma will receive online, group-based MBSR sessions over 10 weeks. At pre- and post-intervention, participants will complete laboratory assessments, including self-report questionnaires and blood sample collection to assess markers of inflammation. Data assessing subjective and physiological stress in daily life will be collected for one week at pre- and post-intervention. This preliminary data will be used to test effects of online MBSR on health-relevant outcomes among young adults with a history of childhood trauma. Read Less

More than 15 million family caregivers provide support for individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or related dementias. This number is expected to grow with the increasing population of persons with dementia (PWD). Stress in caregivers to older adults with chronic diseases is already a significant public health issue because it is associated with multiple negative physical and mental health outcomes for the caregiver (e.g., depression, cardiovascular disease) and can negatively impact the health of the PWD as well. Importantly, stress levels are even higher in female than male caregivers and in caregivers to PWD than other chronic conditions that affect older adults. There are numerous interventions to improve well-being in caregivers to PWD, but only two have been shown to moderately improve caregiver depression and quality of life in the PWD. However, both of the interventions are time and energy intensive. One promising candidate to reduce stress and improve quality of life is the endogenous neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT). Intranasal OXT interventions have been shown to successfully reduce stress and increase quality of life in other populations, including patients with borderline personality disorder, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Anxiety Disorder, and Depressive Disorder. This study will assess the efficacy and safety of intranasal oxytocin (OXT) to improve the quality of life and reduce chronic stress levels in the caregivers to PWD. Participants will be randomly enrolled to one of three groups: 12 IU intranasal oxytocin, 24 IU intranasal oxytocin or placebo. The study drug will be administered daily for 21 days. Read Less

In the last four years alone, residents of Puerto Rico have experienced a slew of natural disasters including Hurricane Maria in 2017, earthquakes in 2019 and 2020, the continued COVID-19 pandemic from 2020-2022, and most recently Hurricane Fiona. This series of distressing events can lead to an increased need for mental health resources and trauma treatment. Furthermore, the unique single-district structure of the Puerto Rican education system allows for the efficient dissemination of potential interventions and treatment to all students. The purpose of this study is to examine two treatment conditions for educators and school-aged children in Puerto Rico experiencing burnout, fatigue, and high stress: delivery of a mindfulness-based educator curriculum and, for children who report Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology, delivery of the mindfulness curriculum with the additional intervention of Cue-Centered Therapy (CCT). The study has two aims: 1) To assess the efficacy of the mindfulness curriculum and of CCT in a population of students, counselors, and teachers, characterized by high stress over the last few years of natural disasters and pandemic challenges and 2) To identify genetic contributions to resilience by analyzing gene expression in students before and after the intervention. The overarching goals of the investigators' research collaboration are to improve educators' psychological well-being and children's socioemotional development when faced with high stress and adversity and to improve mental health clinicians' competence and confidence in treating children exposed to trauma by training them in CCT. The investigators' research will identify critical biopsychosocial components responsible for the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional improvement and effective implementation strategies in a large but geographically dispersed school district. The knowledge base that will result from this study will inform the implementation of trauma-informed care in school settings and with populations experiencing stress and adversity, and contribute to the investigators' understanding of the underlying biology of these interventions to provide a rationale for further development and dissemination. Read Less

The aim of this study is to determine the effects of regular cannabidiol (CBD) use on the psychobiological mechanisms of the stress response. This will be achieved by comparing acute stress responses of adults who either use or do not use CBD regularly. Correlates of CBD use, including tobacco use, will be collected. Read Less

The goal of this study is to better understand how stress impacts people's ability to learn across their experiences and link new information to what they already know. The investigators will compare performance on a memory task between stressed and non-stressed participants. This memory task requires people to integrate knowledge across learning experiences (think: having to "connect the dots", draw inferences, and generalize your knowledge to new situations and scenarios). Cortisol, the brain's primary stress hormone, will be measured at multiple points throughout the study to measure stress levels. The investigators hypothesize that: 1. Stress will disrupt performance on the memory task by interfering with memory processes that enable linking of related memories. 2. Higher cortisol levels, which reflect a greater stress response, will relate to greater deficits in memory performance across participants. This research has broad implications for understanding how stress impacts the ability to learn and retain new information, particularly in high-stress environments like schools and workplaces. Additionally, this work may provide insights into the cognitive difficulties experienced by individuals with psychiatric disorders, where stress can worsen memory and learning challenges. Read Less

The investigators have developed interactive, multimedia-intensive, computer-based treatment programs that include depression (Problem-Solving Therapy), stress management, and conflict management. Together the three modules are called PATH. The problem-solving module is based on an evidence-based psychotherapy called Problem-Solving Therapy in which depressed patients identify problems in their lives and work through a structured format for solving these problems. We have subjected the problem-solving module to Phase 1-3 feasibility, acceptability and efficacy trials which have been positive and without adverse events. The conflict program uses a cognitive-behavioral-therapy-based approach. The program includes a conflict briefing, an interactive conflict simulation, a conflict assessment tool, an interactive training exercise in interest-based negotiation, and a cognitive restructuring exercise. The stress program also uses a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach. In the program, the mentor introduces the "stress pyramid", which demonstrates how stress triggers can lead to different feelings, actions and thoughts, which are analogs to the CBT realms of dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors, and faulty cognitive processes. The stress management content is delivered over 6 sessions, with each session including exercises in the 3 domains of thoughts, feelings, and actions. The program includes briefings, cognitive restructuring exercises, interactive scenarios, and self-assessments. This program has been evaluated with law and business students and was shown effective in reducing stress levels. The purpose of the current study is to make the problem-solving, stress, and the conflict modules available through the internet for any adult 18 or older in order to assess their feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness under naturalistic conditions. Read Less

The Cocooned Moms Study is a pre- and post-design study primarily aimed at reducing stress, depressive symptoms, and blood pressure among expectant Black women by providing them with free access to the InovCares mobile app. InovCares is a culturally-sensitive telehealth platform designed for community-based care coordination in maternal care. It also offers a culturally tailored maternal mental health program, which provides access to resources addressing social determinants of health, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy, and compassion-focused therapy (CFT), along with peer-to-peer support and gamification. The study will evaluate the impact of these interventions on reported stress levels, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and blood pressure (BP) among Black pregnant women. Read Less

The purpose of the study is to better understand the effects of cannabis in relation to mental and physical states including its relationship with mood, cognition, perception including the experience of temperature and pain, and heart rate. We expect that participants will be in this research study for approximately one week. The total amount of time that participants will spend completing study tasks will be about 2.5 hours across two separate in-person visits. Read Less

The investigators are conducting a two-site randomized control trial with the aim of defining the impact of music (M) without or with parent voice (MPV) on very preterm infants' acute and cumulative stress, intranetwork connectivity on term brain MRI, and language and other neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years corrected age. This is based on the hypothesis that infants in MPV arm are expected to experience the greatest benefit compared with infants receiving standard care. Read Less

The purpose of the study is to understand whether different stress management interventions impact stress among HCT cancer caregivers and patients. Read Less

The study plans to enroll a total of 132 patients. The goal of this study is to measure pre-and post-music intervention changes in patients' vital signs, serum- and plasma-level biomarkers by broad-spectrum proteomics analysis, metabolic analysis, and perceived pain, anxiety, and mood states as measured by validated questionnaires (STAI-S, POMS-SF, and VASP). We will collect demographic information on each participant. Participants will also complete the Brief Musical Experience Questionnaire (BMEQ) to investigate potential links between susceptibility to music-induced anxiolysis and prior musical training, preference and exposure. Read Less