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Parent Encouragement And Coaching of Happiness in Youth
Maternal Positive Affect Socialization and Child Neural Reward Response
Who can join
Ages 4 to 99 · All sexes · Healthy volunteers welcome
Full eligibility criteria
Inclusion Criteria for Mothers: * Birth mother (biologically female, any gender) * Providing regular care for participating child (i.e., at least 50% of time) * Elevated, clinically significant levels of depression (16 or higher on CES-D) * Aged 18+ Exclusion Criteria for Mothers: * Lifetime history of a bipolar disorder * Lifetime history of a psychotic disorder Inclusion Criteria for Participating Child: -Aged 4-6 years Exclusion Criteria for Participating Child: * T-score greater than 63 on the internalizing or externalizing composites of the CBCL * Lifetime history of a psychiatric illness * Lifetime history of neurodevelopmental disorder * Lifetime history of neurological disorder
About the study
The goal of this mechanistic clinical trial is to examine whether parent-coaching aimed at increasing child positive affect will increase child neural response to reward. The main questions it aims to answer are:
Aim 1. Characterize child neural reward response and its relation to maternal socialization of positive emotions at baseline in healthy young children.
Aim 2. Evaluate how coaching-related changes in maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contribute to increases in child neural reward response over time.
Aim 3. Examine how maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contributes to increases in child neural reward response in the moment.
Participating mother-child dyads will be randomized to either 3 sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect or 3 sessions of a general parenting support intervention and neural response to reward and affective behavior will be examined pre and post intervention.
What is being tested
- Parent Coaching (behavioral)
- Active Control (behavioral)
Sponsor: University of Pittsburgh · Participants: 180 · Started: Oct 28, 2025
Contact the study team
- Julie Research Coordinator · Phone: 412-509-8787
Official record on ClinicalTrials.gov — NCT06725160
Locations in the U.S.
| Pennsylvania | University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh |
Conditions
From ClinicalTrials.gov, data retrieved Sep 30, 2026. Each study sets its own eligibility; the study team decides who can join.