Clinical trial NCT04465240: Adolescent Responses to Varying Environments in Virtual Reality Simulations
Official title: Adolescent Responses to Varying Environments in Virtual Reality Simulations (THRIVE: The Research In Virtual Environments Study)
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Residential Characteristics
Emotions
Stress, Psychological
Stress, Physiological
Keywords: Neighborhoods
Poverty Areas
Adolescent Development
Lead sponsor: University of Southern California
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
First posted: 2020-07-10
Enrollment: 107
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 14
Maximum age (years): 17
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The objective of this study, named THRIVE (The Research In Virtual Environments Study), is to test hypotheses for how neighborhood environments influence stress and emotion, as a mechanism by which they may influence health. Neighborhood environments may have both acute influences on stress-related processes, but also may have lifespan effects due to the chronic, cumulative effects of repeated exposures and the long-term toll of adapting to adverse neighborhood environments. However, assessing neighborhood influences on stress and emotion is methodologically challenging. This study develops such a novel, alternative approach to address these questions by deploying a virtual reality (VR) based model of neighborhood disadvantage and affluence that creates an immersive experience approximating the experience of being in different neighborhoods. In this study, this model will be applied to understand neighborhood effects in a diverse sample of adolescents (n = 130) from a range of disadvantaged and affluent neighborhoods. The proposed study will employ a randomized experiment (n = 65 per condition), with online questionnaires and a single study session, to determine (a) if virtual exposure to neighborhood disadvantage elicits differences in emotion and stress reactivity; (2) if growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood results in habituation or sensitization to different neighborhood characteristics; and (3) if chronic stress results in habituation or sensitization to different neighborhood characteristics. This research will develop an innovative methodology that will help establish the role that neighborhoods may play in eliciting stress as well as the processes of adaptation to chronic stress and chronic neighborhood exposures. In addition, it will help establish a method that can be utilized more broadly to study contextual and social environmental influences on psychological and biological risk in adolescence.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* English speaking
* Are able to use a dominant hand for joystick manipulation and a non- dominant hand for physiological measurements,
* Are in good physical and mental health, with no self-reported history of hypertension, cardiovascular disease (CVD) or CVD treatment (with associated medication list indicative of treatments that result in exclusion),
* Have hair at least 1cm in length based on self-report to be able to provide a hair sample.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Pregnant, by self-report

Primary outcomes:
measure: Emotional Response
timeFrame: Immediately after the virtual reality task (average of 28 minutes post baseline)
measure: Salivary Cortisol
timeFrame: Measured 5 times: (1) end of baseline, (2) after virtual reality (VR) neighborhood (VR: 11 minutes, average), (3) after questionnaires (26 minutes after VR end, average), (4) video (recovery), after first 15 minutes, (5) after final 15 minutes of video
measure: Blood Pressure
timeFrame: Measured in 5 epochs, typical 60-90 minutes total: (1) Baseline before virtual reality (VR), (2) VR neighborhood (11 minutes, average), (3) Questionnaires (begins 6 minutes after VR end, average), (4) Video: first 15 minutes, (5) Video, final 15 minutes
measure: Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA)
timeFrame: Measured in 5 epochs, typical 60-90 minutes total: (1) Baseline before virtual reality (VR), (2) VR neighborhood (11 minutes, average), (3) Questionnaires (begins 6 minutes after VR end, average), (4) Video: first 15 minutes, (5) Video, final 15 minutes
measure: Cardiac Output (CO)
timeFrame: Measured in 5 epochs, typical 60-90 minutes total: (1) Baseline before virtual reality (VR), (2) VR neighborhood (11 minutes, average), (3) Questionnaires (begins 6 minutes after VR end, average), (4) Video: first 15 minutes, (5) Video, final 15 minutes
measure: Total Peripheral Resistance (TPR)
timeFrame: Measured in 5 epochs, typical 60-90 minutes total: (1) Baseline before virtual reality (VR), (2) VR neighborhood (11 minutes, average), (3) Questionnaires (begins 6 minutes after VR end, average), (4) Video: first 15 minutes, (5) Video, final 15 minutes
measure: Pre-ejection Period (PEP)
timeFrame: Measured in 5 epochs, typical 60-90 minutes total: (1) Baseline before virtual reality (VR), (2) VR neighborhood (11 minutes, average), (3) Questionnaires (begins 6 minutes after VR end, average), (4) Video: first 15 minutes, (5) Video, final 15 minutes
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Los Angeles
country: United States
facility: University of Southern California / USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
state: California
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Southern California
name: Daniel A Hackman, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: