Examining Reward-Related Predictors and Mechanisms of Change in BA Treatment for Anhedonic Adolescents
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02498925. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
The prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) is relatively low in childhood (i.e., 1-3%), but increases substantially during adolescence. By the age of 18, approximately 15% of adolescents will have experienced at least one episode of MDD. A growing body of research implicates abnormalities in reward circuitry as playing a critical role in the development and maintenance of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Importantly, these reward-circuitry abnormalities have been linked to anhedonia (i.e., decreased pleasure or blunted reactivity to rewarding stimuli). Behavioral Activation (BA) represents a promising - and relatively simple to deliver - nonpharmacologic intervention for adolescent depression, which has been shown to be at least as effective as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with regards to symptom reduction and lowering the risk of relapse in adult samples. More recently, promising data have emerged from the application of BA to depressed adolescents. BA can be conceptualized as a treatment directly targeting anhedonia. More specifically, BA targets anhedonia through behavioral change strategies aimed at gradually increasing patients' exposure to and engagement with rewarding stimuli and positively reinforcing experiences. Given this treatment focus, BA may be particularly beneficial for adolescents struggling with relatively elevated levels of anhedonic symptoms. Accordingly, the present study will examine the role of anhedonia and reward functioning in predicting treatment response in BA. In addition, analyses will be conducted examining the reward-related neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying anhedonic symptom improvement in BA.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02498925
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 80 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 13 Years to 18 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Nov 30, 2015
- Primary completion
- Mar 31, 2022
- Completion
- Apr 30, 2023
- Last update posted
- Sep 18, 2024
2015 – 2023
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McLean Hospital | Belmont | Massachusetts | 02478 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02498925, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Sep 18, 2024 · Synced Sep 5, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02498925 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.