Intervention for Intrusive Negative Thinking

Intrusive negative cognitions are key features of many psychiatric disorders, are difficult to treat, and predict poor outcomes in conventional and neurobehavioral interventions. Here, we evaluate the extent to which a novel intervention capitalizing on a preserved neurocircuitry for attending to evolutionarily salient somatosensory stimuli can be used to train attentional mechanisms to override otherwise pre-potent negative cognitions. The initial period will involve open-label intervention refinement and mechanistic evaluation of mechanism; N=35 individuals with high levels of intrusive negative cognitions and dysphoria will be assessed pre/post intervention in the graded sensory training condition. Success will suggest a new intervention pathway for a traditionally treatment-resistant dimension of psychopathology. The second phase will be a randomized trial of 70 participants equally allocated to graded and non-graded training conditions.