Research
TAU / NIMH ABMT Initiative is a large international effort focused on studying the efficacy of attention bias modification (ABM) therapy in a randomized-controlled manner, directed by researchers from Tel-Aviv University (Israel) and the National Institute of Mental Health (USA).
The goals of this project are to: 1) provide researchers around the world with standardized attention bias measurement and training tools; 2) construct an ABM therapy results database; and 3) facilitate further ABM research.
This project is designed to assist you in implementing your ABM research. Importantly, each participating site is encouraged to conduct and publish its own specialized ABM studies in a fully independent manner. In return, we ask that each site contribute its individual data towards an international database. Ultimately, the creation of this database will allow investigators to test ABM efficacy with greater comparability and numbers of subjects than possible within each individual study.
The TAU / NIMH ABMT online toolkit offers the following materials:
- Attention bias measurement tool (including an fMRI-compatible version)
- ABM/placebo training tool
- Complete protocol tutorials
- Dot-probe task description for IRB
- Data Analysis Tool: generates bias scores, other behavioral indices
- DNA collection: information and materials
You are welcomed to join our project. To learn more about it, please read the TAU / NIMH Project Overview.
For further information and registration, please contact us at tau.nimh.abmt@gmail.com.
This research project stems from our discovery that avoidance of minor threats during basic military training and before deployment to combat confers risk for combat-related PTSD (Wald et al, 2013). Through our work in the field of anxiety disorders we were able to develop and test in various randomized controlled trials computerized methods designed to modify maladaptive threat-related attention patterns. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the US Army have expressed strong interest in the possibility of applying our computerized attention re-training program as preventative measure applied during basic training and before deployment.
The study is a randomized controlled trial of attention bias modification training (ABMT) conducted in 800 IDF infantry soldiers. Soldiers are trained prior to deployment to combat zones and are followed-up after six months of deployment. If successful, the tested ABMT program will be integrated into the regular training schedule of IDF combat brigades.
Here you can find the materials needed to run three variants of the dot-probe task used to measure attention biases - see protocol.
Data derived from these tasks can be analyzed with the Analysis Tool (v2.0).
Reference: Abend, R., Pine, D.S., Bar-Haim, Y. (2014). The TAU-NIMH Attention Bias Measurement Toolbox. Retrieved from http://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/anxietytrauma/research/.