Scaffolding of Brain Operations

NCT05412901 | Suspended

• 1 other identifier: R01MH123679
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 170
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Brain activity will be recorded while participants rest and/or perform perceptual discrimination tasks. These tasks include the presentation of sensory stimuli and require participants to detect and discriminate these stimuli, and to report about the objective properties of the stimuli as well as about their subjective perceptual experience using ratings of confidence, visibility, and/or alertness/sleepiness. All sensory stimuli used are neutral and consist of visual stimuli presented on a computer screen (either basic visual stimuli, e.g. an arrow, a grating or a dot, or neutral pictures of e.g. objects, buildings, landscapes), or auditory stimuli presented via headphones (either basic sounds, e.g. a beep or noise, or more complex sounds, e.g. a spoken word or rhythm). The experimental tasks may require participants to compare between sensory stimuli presented at different spatial locations or at different times, and/or to focus their attention on specific stimuli while suppressing distracting information; additionally, tasks may require participants to remember these stimuli for a delayed report. In these tasks, participants' performance will be quantified by motor responses (i.e., button press), reaction times and subjective ratings (confidence, visibility, alertness/sleepiness). Brain activity will be recorded by means of electroencephalography (EEG), a non-invasive technique consisting of electrodes placed along the scalp that record electrical field potentials generated by cortical neurons. EEG will be used to record brain activity prior to and in response to the sensory stimuli presented during the cognitive and perceptual tasks as well as during the participants' responses. Additionally, EEG may be used to record brain activity during a baseline resting state, while participants are not engaged in any particular tasks. In particular, the analysis of the EEG signal will focus on event-related brain activity (i.e., in response to the stimuli) such as event-related potentials (ERP), as well as ongoing and spontaneous and/or induced brain activity quantified as oscillations: wave-like signal fluctuations reflecting rhythmic variations of membrane potentials of cortical neurons. In addition, the investigators will use MRI to take an anatomical image of the brain to facilitate localizing the sources of the activity measured with EEG.

Conditions

Behavioral Performance

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• EEG spectral beta power

  Brain activity will be recorded using 96-channel EEG (BrainVision actiCHamp system, Brain Products). Spectral analysis will be performed using the Matlab-based FieldTrip toolbox, a standard in the field. For all spectral analyses, subject-specific peak frequencies will be estimated to tailor the approach. Beta power will be assessed in a band centered at the individual peak frequency.

  during procedure

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• behavioral performance: accuracy

  during procedure

• behavioral performance: reaction time

  during procedure

Study Arms (5)

Visual spatial discrimination task

OTHER

exp 1.1

Other: discrimination task

Visual spatial discrimination task with temporal manipulation

OTHER

exp 1.2

Other: discrimination task

Crossmodal discrimination task

OTHER

exp 3.1

Other: discrimination task

Visual rule-switching discrimination task [gratings]

OTHER

exp 3.2

Other: discrimination task

Visual rule-switching discrimination task [images]

OTHER

exp 3.3

Other: discrimination task

Interventions

discrimination task OTHER

Participants perform a discrimination task while their brain activity is recorded with EEG. Beta power will be estimated using spectral decomposition techniques, zooming in on subject specific bands in temporospatial windows of interest, and correlated with (1) WM content, (2) decision outcome, and (3) behavioral performance (i.e., accuracy and RT).

Crossmodal discrimination task; Visual rule-switching discrimination task [gratings]; Visual rule-switching discrimination task [images]; Visual spatial discrimination task; Visual spatial discrimination task with temporal manipulation

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 50 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• English speaking
• Normal (or corrected-to-normal) vision, normal hearing

You may not qualify if:

• Epilepsy, past brain surgery, neurological or psychiatric disorders for which they are on medication

Sponsors & Collaborators

• New York State Psychiatric Institute: lead

Study Sites (1)

New York State Psychiatric Institute

New York, New York, 10032, United States

Location

Study Officials

• Saskia Haegens, PhD

  NYSPI

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor of Clinical Neuroscience

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 1, 2022
• First Posted: June 9, 2022
• Study Start: April 10, 2022
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 1, 2026
• Last Updated: May 9, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-05

Locations

US (1)