LPFC Organization in Emotion-Duration Difference Estimation

NCT06276400 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 4-24-0023:1
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 50
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

To support optimal behavior in daily life, goals and responses following emotional events should ideally incorporate not only the valence and intensity of prior emotional episodes but also their temporal features, such as the relative duration of positive vs. negative attributes. However, how specific brain regions contribute to the integration of temporal and emotional information and promote goal-directed response remains unknown. The goal of this study is to examine how specific brain regions track both emotional and temporal information of dynamic emotional events to inform other related brain regions to guide goal-oriented and context-appropriate actions. The investigators will scan healthy human participants using functional MRI (fMRI) while they view emotional image sequences and track the associated emotional and temporal (duration) information, and act accordingly. The investigators will employ multivariate patterns analysis and pattern similarity analysis to identify brain regions that represent (can decode) emotion, time, and their combined signals, as well as brain regions that represent the associated action goal. In addition, to infer the causal contributions of these brain regions in forming task-relevant representations (emotion, time, and action goal), the same participants will be recruited to receive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in these regions.

Conditions

Healthy

Keywords

Emotion-time information integration in healthy participants; Neural representation of emotional events and goal action

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Multivariate BOLD metrics

  The investigators will use BOLD activation patterns measured from each ROI to fit quantitative models of emotional valence, time, and action goal encoding. These models will be used to classify stimulus representations on experimental trials to quantify how stimulus representations are encoded in each brain region studies, and how these representations change across experimental manipulations. These measurements will be used to test the impact of stimulus manipulations on stimulus representations in different brain regions.

  Through study completion, an average of 12-14 months

• Behavioral response

  On all trials participants will be instructed to attend carefully to report which valence of emotional images shown for a longer duration by pressing one of two buttons held in their hand inside the scanner. The correct button to be pressed is determined by the valence, the presentation duration, and the color of a triangle (the contextual cue). Investigators will ensure participants are performing the task as instructed by providing practices and assessing the accuracy of their behavioral responses.

  Through study completion, an average of 12-14 months

Study Arms (1)

Duration difference estimation

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants will view emotional sequences composed of four emotional images. They will be asked to indicate whether the total duration of positive or negative emotional events was longer, by responding with a button press to a contextual cue defining the relevant action (Left vs Right button). The amount of temporal evidence in favor of one valence in a 12-s sequence is varied orthogonally with respect to the (predominant) emotional valence by varying individual picture presentation times. Participants will undergo one fMRI session and 3 TMS+fMRI sessions (2 of the TMS sessions target prefrontal (PFC) sites, and 1 targets a non-PFC control site).

Other: Emotion valence; Other: Time; Device: TMS Stimulation

Interventions

Emotion valence OTHER

Positive vs. Negative (temporally extended sequence)

Duration difference estimation

Time OTHER

∆ Temporal evidence (i.e. relative time difference of stimulus-type exposure across a sequence: 1200 vs. 1800)

Duration difference estimation

TMS Stimulation DEVICE

FPl vs. mid-LPFC vs. non-PFC Control (S1); Specific LPFC region (vs. non-PFC active Control) function is manipulated with an inhibitory TMS protocol (cTBS).

Duration difference estimation

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 45 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• right-handed
• between the ages of 18 and 45
• be a fluent English speaker
• have normal to corrected-to-normal vision.

You may not qualify if:

• if they report a current or prior diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder requiring hospitalization and/or are currently using psychiatric medication; o If they report a history of or current neurological disease (i.e., stroke, concussion, epilepsy, major head trauma, complicated migraine);
• If they ever had a seizure;
• If they have a family history of epilepsy or seizure disorders;
• If they have a history of fainting;
• If they are sleep deprived (TMS only);
• If they have a history of prior surgery with metal clips, implants, devices, prosthetics, cardiac or neural implants (e.g., pacemaker; neurostimulator), or cochlear implants;
• If they are unable to safely and comfortably complete an MRI: have metal in the body, recent surgery, presence of surgically implanted devices not cleared for MRI, extreme claustrophobia, if they report tattoos of the head or neck region, non-removable metal piercing anywhere on the body
• Women will be asked to self-report their pregnancy status and have the option to take a pregnancy test if they wish. If there is a chance a participant is pregnant, they will not be scanned.
• As part of the newly adopted UCSB BIC prescreening procedure, participants will be asked about their history of hearing issues (including loss, hyperacuity, sensitivity to loud noises, history of tinnitus (ringing in ears), job with high noise exposure, and chronic migraines. Participants will be excluded if one or more hearing issues are reported.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of California, Santa Barbara: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of California, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, California, 93106, United States

RECRUITING

Related Publications (23)

• Lapate RC, Heckner MK, Phan A, Tambini A, D'Esposito M. Representation-based TMS to prefrontal cortex changes action goals and avoidance behavior during negative emotional processing. under review

  BACKGROUND

• Lapate RC, Ballard IC, Heckner MK, D'Esposito M. Emotional Context Sculpts Action Goal Representations in the Lateral Frontal Pole. J Neurosci. 2022 Feb 23;42(8):1529-1541. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1522-21.2021. Epub 2021 Dec 30.

  PMID: 34969868 BACKGROUND

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  PMID: 21924359 BACKGROUND

• Walther A, Nili H, Ejaz N, Alink A, Kriegeskorte N, Diedrichsen J. Reliability of dissimilarity measures for multi-voxel pattern analysis. Neuroimage. 2016 Aug 15;137:188-200. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.12.012. Epub 2015 Dec 18.

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• Sallet J, Mars RB, Noonan MP, Neubert FX, Jbabdi S, O'Reilly JX, Filippini N, Thomas AG, Rushworth MF. The organization of dorsal frontal cortex in humans and macaques. J Neurosci. 2013 Jul 24;33(30):12255-74. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5108-12.2013.

  PMID: 23884933 BACKGROUND

• Verhagen L. Prefrontal Consensus Atlas (Oxford) [Internet]. 2018. Available from: http://lennartverhagen.com/; lennart.verhagen@donders.ru.nl

  BACKGROUND

• Reuter M, Schmansky NJ, Rosas HD, Fischl B. Within-subject template estimation for unbiased longitudinal image analysis. Neuroimage. 2012 Jul 16;61(4):1402-18. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.02.084. Epub 2012 Mar 10.

  PMID: 22430496 BACKGROUND

• Tyszka JM, Pauli WM. In vivo delineation of subdivisions of the human amygdaloid complex in a high-resolution group template. Hum Brain Mapp. 2016 Nov;37(11):3979-3998. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23289.

  PMID: 27354150 BACKGROUND

• Bates D, Mächler M, Bolker B, Walker S. Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, Articles. 2015;67(1):1-48.

  BACKGROUND

• Badre D, Bhandari A, Keglovits H, Kikumoto A. The dimensionality of neural representations for control. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2021 Apr;38:20-28. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.002. Epub 2020 Aug 19.

  PMID: 32864401 BACKGROUND

• Freund MC, Etzel JA, Braver TS. Neural Coding of Cognitive Control: The Representational Similarity Analysis Approach. Trends Cogn Sci. 2021 Jul;25(7):622-638. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.03.011. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

  PMID: 33895065 BACKGROUND

• Rose NS, LaRocque JJ, Riggall AC, Gosseries O, Starrett MJ, Meyering EE, Postle BR. Reactivation of latent working memories with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Science. 2016 Dec 2;354(6316):1136-1139. doi: 10.1126/science.aah7011.

  PMID: 27934762 BACKGROUND

• Lapate RC, Samaha J, Rokers B, Postle BR, Davidson RJ. Perceptual metacognition of human faces is causally supported by function of the lateral prefrontal cortex. Commun Biol. 2020 Jul 9;3(1):360. doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-1049-3.

  PMID: 32647260 BACKGROUND

• Lapate RC, Samaha J, Rokers B, Hamzah H, Postle BR, Davidson RJ. Inhibition of Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Produces Emotionally Biased First Impressions: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography Study. Psychol Sci. 2017 Jul;28(7):942-953. doi: 10.1177/0956797617699837. Epub 2017 Jun 14.

  PMID: 28613974 BACKGROUND

• Tambini A, D'Esposito M. Causal Contribution of Awake Post-encoding Processes to Episodic Memory Consolidation. Curr Biol. 2020 Sep 21;30(18):3533-3543.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.063. Epub 2020 Jul 30.

  PMID: 32735812 BACKGROUND

• Tambini A, Nee DE, D'Esposito M. Hippocampal-targeted Theta-burst Stimulation Enhances Associative Memory Formation. J Cogn Neurosci. 2018 Oct;30(10):1452-1472. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01300. Epub 2018 Jun 19.

  PMID: 29916791 BACKGROUND

• Nee DE, D'Esposito M. The hierarchical organization of the lateral prefrontal cortex. Elife. 2016 Mar 21;5:e12112. doi: 10.7554/eLife.12112.

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• Nee DE. Integrative frontal-parietal dynamics supporting cognitive control. Elife. 2021 Mar 2;10:e57244. doi: 10.7554/eLife.57244.

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• Lowe CJ, Manocchio F, Safati AB, Hall PA. The effects of theta burst stimulation (TBS) targeting the prefrontal cortex on executive functioning: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychologia. 2018 Mar;111:344-359. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.02.004. Epub 2018 Feb 10.

  PMID: 29438672 BACKGROUND

• Lapate RC, Rokers B, Tromp DP, Orfali NS, Oler JA, Doran ST, Adluru N, Alexander AL, Davidson RJ. Awareness of Emotional Stimuli Determines the Behavioral Consequences of Amygdala Activation and Amygdala-Prefrontal Connectivity. Sci Rep. 2016 May 16;6:25826. doi: 10.1038/srep25826.

  PMID: 27181344 BACKGROUND

• Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988 Jun;54(6):1063-70. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.54.6.1063.

  PMID: 3397865 BACKGROUND

• Spielberger CD, Sydeman SJ, Owen AE, Marsh BJ. Measuring anxiety and anger with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI). The use of psychological testing for treatment planning and outcomes assessment, 2nd ed. 1507;2(1999):993-1021.

  BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Time

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Physical Phenomena

Study Officials

• Regina Lapate, Ph.D.

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Mengsi Li, M.S.

CONTACT

805-837-5206; mengsi.li@ucsb.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Masking Details: Participants will typically be unaware of the conditions presented, though because these involve manipulations of stimuli or task demands, they may be aware of the manipulation. This is not expected to impact the primary outcome measures (e.g., BOLD signal activation patterns).
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor

Model Details: This is a basic science study in which all participants will participate in all task conditions within each experiment (repeated-measures design).

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 16, 2024
• First Posted: February 26, 2024
• Study Start: January 29, 2024
• Primary Completion (Estimated): March 31, 2028
• Study Completion (Estimated): March 31, 2028
• Last Updated: May 4, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: Data will be available indefinitely beginning with the publication of results
• Access Criteria: Raw fMRI data and raw behavioral data will be available on the NIMH Data Archive (NDA) by submitting Data Access Requests. Experimental scripts and analysis code will be available on GitHub (an online tool for storing and managing code).

Locations

US (1)