Project description
A VR-based breakthrough in childhood trauma care
Childhood trauma leaves lasting scars on mental and physical health, impacting social and occupational outcomes. While current therapies address emotional consequences, cognitive difficulties remain a challenge. Funded by the European Research Council, the SOCIAbLE project will address this problem, targeting trauma-related cognitive issues. As a psychosocial intervention, it uses a virtual reality (VR) environment to deliver a social cognitive skills programme, providing a low-cost, scalable solution. This approach aims to bridge the gap in understanding and managing cognitive consequences, potentially transforming how we address mental health disorders. SOCIAbLE's exploration into VR-based interventions is a crucial first step in paving the way for future clinical trials, offering hope for those grappling with the enduring effects of childhood trauma.
Objective
The affective and cognitive consequences of childhood trauma are experienced across the life span, and are associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes in those affected. While trauma-focused psychological therapies successfully address the affective consequences of childhood trauma, the cognitive consequences have been poorly understood and managed despite being highly predictive of poorer social and occupational outcomes. SOCIAbLE is a novel psychosocial intervention that targets the cognitive difficulties associated with childhood trauma. It consists of a social cognitive skills program delivered in a virtual reality (VR) environment. VR based interventions represent a low cost and scalable method of simulating activities of daily life in a clinical setting. This project will establish whether SOCIAbLE, as a novel VR-based intervention targeting trauma-related cognitive difficulties, is feasible and beneficial to everyday function, based on data from individuals with a history of childhood trauma. Gathering and analysing this data will represent a crucial first stage in knowledge translation, forming the basis for establishing future definitive clinical trials to validate the effectiveness of this approach in patients with mental health disorders. By addressing a major untreated cause of disability, SOCIAbLE has the potential to add substantially to current clinical solutions (e.g. trauma-informed CBT targeting anxiety).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept GrantsHost institution
H91 Galway
Ireland