An interventional study of social support in Psychological Trauma, Historical, Discrimination, Racial and Emotion Regulation, sponsored by University of Nevada, Reno. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 65 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-04-13.
Sponsored by University of Nevada, Reno · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
This study will examine the effects of social support on threat vigilance and arousal using eye tracking. We will also test the moderating effects of trauma and discrimination history.
Both interpersonal trauma (IPT) and ethno-racial discrimination amplify risk for hyper-arousal symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the mechanism of this effect is unclear. Prior research suggests that social support plays an important role in regulating emotional responses, a process called social emotion regulation. This study will test whether a history of IPT and/or ethno-racial discrimination influence the social regulation of arousal and vigilance. Social regulation will be tested by contrasting responses under conditions with and without social support.
47 studies on the registry are indexed under Racism; 8 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 45 is below the median of 106 across 34 interventional studies indexed under Racism.
Browse Racism studies →University of Nevada, Reno is the lead sponsor of 28 studies on the registry; 5 are open to participants now.
Of its 5 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 1 (20%) have results posted.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Participants will hold the hand of their romantic partner
Behavioral: social support
Participants will hold the hand of a stranger
Behavioral: social support
Participants will hold a stress ball
social support is provided in the form of social touch (hand holding)
Vigilance Related Eye Movements - Number of Eye Fixations
Participants will view 15 pictures of natural environmental scenes for 10 seconds per image. We will use an eye tracker to examine the number of eye fixations per scene. A greater number of fixations during the 10 second presentation of a scene would indicate greater vigilance.
Time frame: Collected from minute 15 to minute 45 of study participation, approximately
Vigilance Related Eye Movements - Visual Scanning
Participants will view 15 pictures of natural environmental scenes for 10 seconds per image. We will use an eye tracker to examine the proportion of the scene that they look at (fixate on) out of approximately 80 possible sectors. A greater proportion of the scene they fixate on would indicate greater vigilance.
Time frame: Collected from minute 15 to minute 45 of study participation, approximately
Threat-Related Physiological Arousal - Pupil Dilation
Participants will view a series of visual cues (either an 'X' or an 'O') where an 'X' signals a possible (20% probability) aversive auditory stimulus (human scream). We will examine pupil dilation during the task in order to measure arousal in response to uncertain threat. We will calculate average pupil dilation during the wait period after threat cues (X) and after safety cues (O). We will subtract average pupil dilation after safety cues from threat cues to create an index of threat-related arousal. Greater pupil dilation (for threat minus safety cues) would indicate greater threat-related arousal.
Time frame: Collected from minute 45 to minute 75 of study participation, approximately
Plan to share: Yes — de-identified data including primary and secondary outcomes
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form
Time frame: within 6 months after publication
Access criteria: email request to the study PI (cynthialancaster@unr.edu)
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University of Nevada, Reno