Project Summary/Abstract
Despite decades of research, current psychological treatments designed to treat a variety of mental illnesses
are not effective for all who receive them. Specifically, well-supported treatments for mental illnesses that
involve fear (e.g., PTSD, panic) appear to be effective for the majority of individuals, but consistently leave a
group of “treatment non-responders.” One potential explanation for the observed discrepancy in treatment
response may be the focus of modern psychotherapies on relieving symptoms specific to categorical
diagnoses, rather than mechanisms underlying why the individual is experiencing the symptoms. Recently,
fear-based psychological disorders (e.g., PTSD, specific phobia, panic disorder, social anxiety) have been
identified as sharing a distinct set of biomarkers, including genetic biomarkers of acute fear (i.e., fear in the
moment) and impairments in controlling attention. Neurobehavioral interventions are therefore a promising
class of treatments designed to target the biological markers that may be maintaining the symptoms of various
psychological disorders. The Attention Training Technique (ATT) is a neurobehavioral intervention that has
garnered attention through its demonstrated effectiveness in reducing symptoms across a variety of
psychological diagnoses. While grounded in well-established theory, the mechanisms of change in ATT are
largely unknown. One proposed mechanism may be that ATT promotes functional connectivity between
regions in the brain implicated in top-down executive control over attention (ventromedial prefrontal cortex
[vmPFC] and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]) and bottom-up attention networks (dorsal anterior
cingulate cortex [dACC] and amygdala), resulting in increased top-down regulation of potentially problematic
bottom-up attentional processes. The same brain regions implicated in both top-down and bottom-up
attentional processes have also been associated with fear responding (i.e., startle response) and fear learning
(i.e., how quickly one learns that a stimuli is safe or to be feared). Taken together, the research suggests that
acute fear responding may be decreased through increased executive control over attention through
engagement in ATT. The proposed randomized clinical trial will test whether a self-administered brief
neurobiological intervention (ATT) to increase attentional control will decrease acute fear responding, and
whether this change is associated with normative dACC functioning, measured by behavioral proxy. It is
expected that those who engage in ATT will show greater attentional control efficiency, which will decrease
their acute fear response. It is also expected that those who engage in ATT will also show greater dACC
functioning, measured by behavioral proxy and will exhibit decreases in their reported fear as their attentional
control increases over the course of the intervention. Additionally, it is expected that the intervention (ATT) will
indirectly decrease symptoms of categorical fear-based psychological diagnoses through the identified
biomarkers (i.e., attentional control, dACC functioning, acute fear response) to decrease reported symptoms.
