Recruiting

Observational Study

Sponsor:

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Code:

NCT05574634

Conditions

Aging

Alzheimer Disease

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Tablet based adaptive multimodal attention practice program

Tablet based adaptive criterion task practice program

Study Details

Brief summary:

A growing body of research has highlighted the importance of frontal regions, at both the functional and structural levels, in age-related declines in attentional and cognitive processing. However, the underlying neurobiological pathophysiological changes in the brain that contribute to these declines are still largely unclear. The objective of this proposal is to investigate neural mechanisms of age-related attentional distractibility, focusing on the neural circuit initiated from the locus coeruleus (LC). In the current proposal, the investigators will test the hypothesis that the neural disconnectivity of LC with the salience network (SN) drives failures of ignoring distractors in older adults. The investigators will examine how LC-SN connectivity is associated with selective attention performance, and how improved LC-SN connectivity through a cognitive training program may lead to improved attentional performance.

Conditions

Aging

Alzheimer Disease

Study ID

NCT05574634

Start date

Apr 11, 2023

Status verified date

Aug, 2025

Completion date

Jun 30, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Jun 30, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion:

  • Healthy adult participants
  • No younger than 18 and no older than 75 yrs of age
  • Ability to provide written informed consent

Exclusion:

  • History of surgery involving metal implants
  • Possible metal fragments in the eyes
  • Pacemaker
  • A history of claustrophobia
  • Braces
  • Weighing over 250 pounds
  • Pregnant or possibility of being pregnant.
  • Severe medical or psychiatric conditions (e.g., blind or deaf, head trauma)
  • Learning disabilities or developmental disabilities

Study Design

Enrollment

200 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Older adult participants

Older adult participants in the study will complete one of two variants of an attention practice program and that will be preceded by, and followed by, an fMRI scan session featuring an attention task

no intervention: Younger adult participants

Younger adult participants in the study will complete one fMRI scan session featuring an attention task

Interventions

Tablet based adaptive multimodal attention practice program

An adaptive at-home tablet-based program that includes variants of the Flanker Task, the Stroop Task, and a Visual Tracking Task. Each session of practice will include up to ten minutes with each of these task types, and the tasks will increase in difficulty in a way that further taxes attention (such as through more distractors or more incongruent trials) as participant performance improves.

Tablet based adaptive criterion task practice program

An adaptive, at-home tablet-based variant of the criterion task, that is, the selective attention/distraction task used during the scanning portion of the human participant portions of the study, that takes up to 25 minutes to complete each session.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in accuracy on the place-face selective attention task after two weeks [ Time Frame: Scan before and after attentional practice (2 weeks between scans) ]
  • Change in fMRI LC-SN connectivity after two weeks [ Time Frame: Scan before and after attentional practice (2 weeks between scans) ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Tae-Ho Lee, PhD

540-231-6174taehol@vt.edu

Benjamin Katz, PhD

540-231-9816katzben@vt.edu

Locations

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Recruiting

Blacksburg, Virginia, United States, 24061

Contacts

Tae-Ho Lee, PhD

540-231-6174taehol@vt.edu

Benjamin Katz, PhD

540-231-9816katzben@vt.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Last update posted

Aug 19, 2025

Last verified

Aug, 2025

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on 2025-08-19.