Mary L. Woody, Ph.D.

Fellow in Child & Adolescent Depression

Project Details

Project Title

Development of a precision closed loop social training intervention for teen depression

project summary

Via a clinical application of augmented reality (AR)-guided electroencephalogram (EEG)-based assessment, SocialCARE provides a precision closed loop social training intervention to teens suffering from depression, which is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Up to one-half of depressed teens do not respond to frontline treatments. SocialCARE aims to serve as an adjunctive intervention for behavioral activation, a widely used treatment for teen depression, by addressing a common barrier to treatment response: difficulty recruiting brain responses that facilitate engagement with social reward. In pursuit of this goal, SocialCARE uses immersive AR technology to simulate real-life social settings in a therapeutic environment while utilizing a novel brain-computer interface to measure and provide neurofeedback about EEG-based indicators of the teen’s engagement with socially rewarding visuals. This project will test whether this approach – never previously available in a clinical setting – can improve teens’ social engagement in the real world and provide acute symptom relief.

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