AzTrials
AzTrials

HealthyNCT00060853

Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain in Social and Emotional Reasoning

An observational study of Healthy, run by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at 1 site in United States.

Completed

Finished. The study has ended and is not enrolling. Results may be posted on the official record.

Official record
Search all trials

Trial summary

This study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify brain regions involved in social and emotional reasoning. It will identify differences in brain activity during task performance between people who have a nervous system illness and those who do not. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Any ageHealthy volunteers can take part
Conditions the study is for
Healthy
How many people
330 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
May 2003to May 2005
Phase
Observational
Are there results?
None posted in the registry

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages Any age
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Child, Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • In all the studies, subjects will consist of healthy, native English-speaking, right-handed volunteers, as measured by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. Subjects will range in age from 21 to 55 years old and they will be included regardless of race.
  • In studies 4 and 5, equal numbers of males and females will be recruited owing to previous findings of significant sex differences on such tests. In all other studies subjects will be recruited indiscriminately on the basis of sex.

Who cannot join

  • Non-native English speakers and non-right handers will be excluded as mentioned above, as will non-neurologically normal volunteers. Subjects younger than 21 and older than 55 will be excluded. A pregnancy test will be employed with all women of childbearing age. The results must be negative in order to proceed with the MRI.
  • Subjects with any of the following: aneurysm clip; implanted neural stimulator; implanted cardiac pacemaker or auto-defibrillator; cochlear implant; ocular foreign body, e.g. metal shavings; insulin pump; or irremovable body piercing will be excluded from the study due to the possible dangerous effects of the magnet upon metal objects in the body.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

United States1 site
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

    Bethesda, Maryland, 20892

Other trials in United States

About this study

Official title: Reasoning About Social and Economic Knowledge: Identifying the Role of the Human Prefrontal Cortex Using Functional Neuroimaging

This study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify brain regions involved in social and emotional reasoning. It will identify differences in brain activity during task performance between people who have a nervous system illness and those who do not. MRI is a diagnostic tool that uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to produce images of structural and chemical changes in the brain.

Healthy normal volunteers between 21 and 55 years of age who are right-handed and are native English speakers may be eligible for this study. Candidates will be screened with a medical history, including psychiatric and neurological information.

Participants will be asked to perform social and emotional reasoning tasks, such as sorting and judging rules and rule violations, while undergoing MRI scanning. Some tasks may simply involve viewing items on a screen. Others may involve solving complex problems and responding by pressing buttons. During the scan, the subject lies on a table in a narrow cylinder (the scanner) containing a magnetic field. The scan will last about 2 hours, with subjects asked to lie still for up to 10 minutes at a time.

Read the detailed description

The purpose of the protocol is to localize the neural regions and systems mediating the forms of knowledge representations hypothesized by the principal investigator to be stored in the human prefrontal cortex. Utilizing a variety of experimental neuropsychological tasks during functional MRI, we will investigate hypotheses regarding the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in planning, problem solving, economic exchange and reasoning; and the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in social cognition and emotional processing. We will ascertain the relationship between so-called [cold] cognitive processes such as planning and [hot] social processes such as mate choice and specific brain regions within the prefrontal cortex. We will also attempt to determine the relationship between non-frontal neural structures involved in emotional expression, such as the amygdala, and those frontal neural structures involved in executive functions that may modulate emotion. In addition, we will attempt to determine the requirements for frontal-parietal versus frontal-temporal network involvement in spatial landmark tasks. The data that we collect in this protocol will be of value in identifying a set of neural regions and distributed networks mediating the forms of knowledge representation stored in the prefrontal cortex. These questions will be addressed over seven separate studies with healthy, normal adult volunteers. The studies will employ within- and between-subject, event-related fMRI designs. The data collected will consist of behavioral measures of cognitive and emotional performance/judgment and corresponding fMRI images.

Conditions
Healthy
Keywords
Amygdala, Orbitofrontal Cortex, Emotion, Cognition, Theory of Mind, Healthy Volunteer, HV

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted14 May 2003 (estimated)
  2. Study startMay 2003
  3. Study completionMay 2005

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Observational
Enrolment
330 participants
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT00060853
Sponsor's protocol ID
030197
Other IDs
03-N-0197
Status last verified
May 2005
First submitted
14 May 2003
Last updated
4 Mar 2008
Results posted
No

Publications

  • Belliveau JW, Kennedy DN Jr, McKinstry RC, Buchbinder BR, Weisskoff RM, Cohen MS, Vevea JM, Brady TJ, Rosen BR. Functional mapping of the human visual cortex by magnetic resonance imaging. Science. 1991 Nov 1;254(5032):716-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1948051.

    PubMed 1948051
  • Belliveau JW, Rosen BR, Kantor HL, Rzedzian RR, Kennedy DN, McKinstry RC, Vevea JM, Cohen MS, Pykett IL, Brady TJ. Functional cerebral imaging by susceptibility-contrast NMR. Magn Reson Med. 1990 Jun;14(3):538-46. doi: 10.1002/mrm.1910140311.

    PubMed 2355835
  • Bergeron C, Pollanen MS, Weyer L, Lang AE. Cortical degeneration in progressive supranuclear palsy. A comparison with cortical-basal ganglionic degeneration. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 1997 Jun;56(6):726-34.

    PubMed 9184663

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

An observational study of Healthy, run by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 2 inclusion and 2 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 4 Mar 2008. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT00060853, which also lists 3 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 4 Mar 2008.

Free account

Log in to keep searching

You’ve used your 3 free searches. AzTrials is free: log in or create a free account to keep searching clinical trials and save the ones you want to follow.

Create a free accountLog in