Recruiting

Observational Study

Sponsor:

UCLA

Code:

NCT06276400

Conditions

Healthy

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 45

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Emotion valence

Time

TMS Stimulation

Study Details

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

Study ID

NCT06276400

Start date

Jan 29, 2024

Status verified date

Apr, 2026

Completion date

Mar 31, 2028

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Mar 31, 2028

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 45

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

  • 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.

Study Design

Enrollment

50 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Duration difference estimation

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).

Interventions

Emotion valence

Positive vs. Negative (temporally extended sequence)

Time

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

TMS Stimulation

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).

Primary outcome measure

  • Multivariate BOLD metrics [ Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 12-14 months ]
  • Behavioral response [ Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 12-14 months ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Mengsi Li, M.S.

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

Locations

University of California, Santa Barbara

Recruiting

Santa Barbara, California, United States, 93106

More Information

Sponsor

University of California, Santa Barbara

Last update posted

May 4, 2026

Last verified

Apr, 2026

Keywords

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

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of California, Santa Barbara on 2026-05-04.