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Article History

Received: 5 September 2017

Revised: 7 March 2018

Accepted: 9 March 2018

First Online: 6 June 2018

Competing interests

: Dr. Brian Iacoviello (the Principal Investigator) is an adjunct faculty member of the ISMMS and is employed full time as the Director of Scientific Affairs of Click Therapeutics. Prior to joining Click Therapeutics, Dr. Iacoviello (in his role as a full time faculty member at ISMMS) and Dr. Dennis Charney (Dean of the ISMMS) co-developed EFMT as a computer-based brain training exercise for the treatment of depression. Drs. Iacoviello and Charney are named co-inventors on a patent filed by ISMMS to develop this therapeutic approach as a mobile/remote program (app). There is a licensing agreement between Mount Sinai and Click Therapeutics to develop this technology; if a commercial product is developed, Mount Sinai, Dr. Iacoviello, and Dr. Charney would benefit financially. A management plan was enacted proactively by the Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research (FCOIR) board at Mount Sinai for this study to mitigate conflicts of interest. According to this management plan, an independent statistical analyst (Dr. Gary Cutter) was secured to conduct all data analyses independently of the study investigators. Dr. Cutter conducted the analyses and provided the write-up and interpretations of the results to be included in the manuscript, to remove any potential bias of conflicted investigators conducting analyses or interpreting results. Dr. Cutter oversees the drafting of all manuscripts including these results and interpretations and approves any manuscript prior to submission. Dr. Iacoviello has served as a consultant to Fortress Biotech, Inc., and reports grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. In the past 3 years, Dr. Murrough has served as a consultant to Fortress Biotech, Inc., Novartis, Janssen Research and Development and Genentech and has received research support from Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; he is named on a patent pending for neuropeptide Y as a treatment for mood and anxiety disorders and on a patent pending for the combination of ketamine and lithium for suicidal ideation and for relapse prevention following ketamine in patients with depression. He is an employee of the ISMMS and has received external funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Brain and Behavioral Research Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dr. Collins performs clinical trial assessments for ProPhase, LLC as an independent contractor. In the past five years, Dr. Iosifescu has consulted for Avanir, Axome, CNS Response, INSYS Therapeutics, Lundbeck, Otsuka, Servier, and Sunovion and he has received grant/research support through the ISMMS from Alkermes, Astra Zeneca, Brainsway, Euthymics, Litecure, Neosync, Roche, Shire. Dr. Cutter, Ms. Hoch and Ms. Huryk declares no competing interests.