Clinical Research Directory

EMI for Reducing Psychological Distress in Young Adults With Multiple ACEs: A RCT Study

This study is a two-arm randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) in reducing psychological distress among young adults with multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The intervention targets three potentially modifiable transdiagnostic psychological processes: emotional clarity, self-esteem, and catastrophizing. Approximately 100 young adults aged 18-29 years who have experienced at least two types of ACEs and report elevated psychological distress will be recruited. Participants will be randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either the EMI intervention group or the waitlist control group. Those assigned to the intervention group will receive a 2-week smartphone-based EMI delivered in their daily lives. Intervention effectiveness will be evaluated by comparing changes in psychological distress and related psychological outcomes between the two groups.

EMI for Reducing Psychological Distress in Young Adults With Multiple ACEs: A Feasibility Study

This single-arm feasibility study aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) designed to reduce psychological distress among young adults with high levels of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The intervention targets three potentially modifiable transdiagnostic psychological processes: emotional clarity, self-esteem, and catastrophizing. Approximately 20 young adults aged 18-29 years who have experienced at least two types of ACEs and report elevated psychological distress will be enrolled. All participants will receive a 2-week smartphone-based EMI delivered in daily life. Feasibility, acceptability, and safety will be evaluated using recruitment, retention, intervention use, participant satisfaction, perceived burden, and adverse events. Changes in psychological distress and related psychological outcomes from baseline to post-intervention will also be explored as exploratory outcomes.

A Two-Part Intervention to Target Cardiovascular Health

Obesity is one of the most common health conditions among autistic young people and its prevalence rises at faster rates for autistic-relative to non-autistic-individuals. This places them at heightened risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality before they enter adulthood. Studies have identified three key contributing factors to CVD outcomes in autistic individuals: unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and chronic stress. This study will explore the effectiveness of two CVD-focused primary care interventions for autistic individuals (ages 9-26): (1) lifestyle medicine consultations tailored towards supporting health-promoting behaviors; and (2) a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) intervention tailored towards addressing chronic stress that contributes to excess weight and maladaptive eating behaviors and results in obesity and CVD. Participants and their caregivers will be randomly placed into either the Lifestyle Medicine Group, CBT Group, or combined Lifestyle Medicine with CBT Group. Participants will respond to questionnaires and surveys measuring lifestyle habits, stress, and psychological risk factors at their first visit, 6-month visit, and 3 months post-intervention visit. Over the course of 6 months, participants will attend virtual sessions (up to three times a month) in accordance with their intervention group.

Probing the Role of Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress in Impaired Vascular Function Among Young Adults With Early Life Adversity

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) represent highly stressful events in the first 18 years of life that include abuse, neglect, and household and community-level dysfunction. Greater exposure to ACEs are associated with greater increases in the risk of cardiovascular diseases and death. Our laboratory has previously observed that vascular function is disrupted in young adults with prior ACE exposure, even though these individuals appear to be healthy clinically (i.e., no classic clinical cardiovascular disease risk factors). There is a need to identify and understand the biological mechanisms underlying these vascular impairments to inform effective interventions to reduce cardiovascular risks the millions of individuals affected by ACEs. The body's response to stress is coordinated across various systems, all of which depend on energy supplied by mitochondria (often referred to as the "powerhouse of cells"). Based on new evidence across multiple physiological systems from our team, our overarching hypothesis is that disruption of mitochondrial function contributes to cardiovascular impairments among young adults with ACEs. Here we propose the initial pilot work necessary to begin to understand these associations, which will directly inform identification of individuals who may be most vulnerable to stress-related cardiovascular risk and the development of interventions to promote cardiovascular-stress resilience. Our aims are to: 1. Determine whether mitochondrial oxidative stress contributes to impaired vascular function among young adults who experienced early life adversity. 2. Determine whether reducing mitochondrial oxidative stress improves the cellular stress and integrated cardiovascular response to laboratory-based psychosocial stress among young adults who experienced early life adversity.

Chinese Community Sample of Hierarchical Model of Psychopathology

By validating Hierarchy Model of psychopathology(HiTOP) in Chinese community samples, this study aims for illumating the problem of diagnostic heterogeneity and high comorbidity within existing psychiatric classification systems in Chinese culture. Concurrently, this study also focuses on exploring trans-diagonostic risk and proctective factors underline HiTOP dimensions. the main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Explore HiTOP model cultural differences between western culture and eastern culture. 2. Understand the impact of different dimension of adverse childhood experience on HiTOP structure. 3. Investigate the relationship between individual unique psychological variables and psychopathological dimensions. Participants will receive a detailed survey trying to measure their psychopathology symptoms, adverse childhood experience and psychological variables. This study expects to fallow up participants for 4 years to monitor the symptom changes.

Paired Emotion Reading Improves Emotion Regulation in Rural Children With ACE

The goal of this study is to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of the online Paired Emotion Reading Intervention (PERI) on the emotion regulation of rural children with adverse childhood experiences (ACE), as compared with the online Paired General Reading Intervention (PGRI) group and a Care as Usual (CAU) control group. This study is a cluster randomized controlled trial and will recruit three rural schools, randomly assigning them to PERI, PGRI, or CAU. Each school will recruit 50 children with ACE. Additionally, the investigators will recruit 150 urban children of similar ages to the rural children. Urban and rural children will be randomly paired to form urban-rural reading groups, reading different types of books and engaging in discussions. It is hypothesized that, after the intervention, rural children in the PERI group will show significantly greater improvements in emotion regulation self-efficacy and emotional awareness compared to the PGRI and CAU groups. These group differences are expected to persist at 1-month and 3-month follow-up assessments.