Clinical and Neurocomputational Effects of Behavioral Activation in Veterans With Impaired Social Functioning

Poor psychosocial functioning, including social disconnection, is common and disabling among Veterans, and often fails to improve following the best available evidence-based treatments, particularly if more severe pathology is present. Behavioral activation (BA) is a promising, low-burden intervention, which could help improve social functioning impairments in Veterans, as this treatment targets social reward sensitivity, an important driving mechanism of social functioning. Thus, the proposed research will test whether BA can specifically improve social functioning in Veterans. Leveraging a neurocomputational framework of social reward seeking behavior, this research will help to improve the treatment and assessment of social function and the prediction of psychosocial treatment needs in Veterans, while providing neurobehavioral targets to develop new interventions that can restore social functioning.

NCT Number	NCT07697001
Lead Sponsor	VA Office of Research and Development
Conditions	Social Anhedonia, Social Function Impairment
Enrollment	136 participants
Start Date	2027-01-01
Primary Completion	2030-12-31 (estimated)
Study Completion	2030-12-31 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-07-16