Recruiting

Memory Development

Sponsor:

University of Texas at Austin

Code:

NCT07199907

Conditions

Healthy

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 13 - 25

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Associative Inference

Probabilistic Inference

Study Details

Brief summary:

The goal of this clinical trial is to test if an intervention used to manipulate memory and inference can improve our understanding of how brain development supports these abilities in healthy adolescent and adult volunteers. The main questions it aims to answer are: (1) Do hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex shift from forming simple memories for singular experiences to more complex memories that link numerous experiences together?; (2) Does an improved ability to retrieve prior memories in parietal cortex during new learning have consequences for how those memories are organized at different ages?; and (3) Does the emerging memory control supported by ventromedial prefrontal cortex development facilitate the formation of optimally-organized memory representations? Adolescent participants (13-18 years) will perform two experimental tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning at three timepoints (T1-T3), spaced 1.5 years apart. Researchers will compare behavioral and neuroimaging data to a separate group of adults (19-25 years) who will perform the task at a single timepoint (T1). The tasks and comparison groups will allow us to isolate the neural processes that support memory and inference behavior, and how these processes change with age.

Conditions

Healthy

Study ID

NCT07199907

Start date

Feb 20, 2025

Status verified date

Sep, 2025

Completion date

Aug, 2029

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Aug, 2029

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 13 - 25

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Right-handed
  • Have normal or corrected to normal vision
  • Have normal hearing
  • Do not have contraindications for MRI
  • Have no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders at initial intake
  • Are of normal intelligence
  • Native or fluent English speaker

Exclusion Criteria:

  • A major medical illness or a neurological disorder, or neurological abnormality including significant head trauma (loss of consciousness > 5 min).
  • Meeting criteria for any psychiatric disorder or any prior psychiatric hospitalizations
  • Intelligence scores more than 1 standard deviation below the mean on the WASI-II
  • History of special education placement
  • Non-native English speaker
  • Prior use of psychotropic medication, except antidepressants, for longer than 1 month
  • History of moderate to severe cannabis use disorder, via self-report
  • MRI exclusions: Claustrophobia; tattoos above the shoulders; permanent eyeliner; permanent retainer or spacer; artificial eyebrows; cardiac pacemaker; metal fragments in eye, skin, or body, including shrapnel; heart valve replacement; brain clips; venous umbrella; being a sheet-metal worker or welder; lifetime history of aneurysm surgery; intracranial bypass, renal, or aortic clips; prosthetic devices such as middle ear, eye, joint, or penile implants; joint replacements; non-removable hearing aid, neurostimulator, or insulin pump; shunts/stents; metal mesh/coil implants; metal plate/pin/screws/wires; or any other metal implants; or suspected pregnancy.

Study Design

Enrollment

142 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Non randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Adolescents

Participants completed a predictable (associative inference; Session 1) and noisy (probabilistic inference; Session 2) learning task during fMRI scanning. Participants completed these tasks three times, once every 18 months.

experimental: Adults

Participants completed a predictable (associative inference; Session 1) and noisy (probabilistic inference; Session 2) learning task during fMRI scanning. Participants completed these tasks a single time, serving as a control comparison to our adolescent arm.

Interventions

Associative Inference

Objects, faces, and scenes will be arranged into 12 ABC triads presented as overlapping AB and BC pairs. AB pairs will comprise objects; BC pairs will consist of the same B object paired with a face or scene (C). Twelve non-overlapping (NO) pairs will serve as controls. Participants will study overlapping (AB, BC) and NO pairs (4s) across two 5-minute fMRI runs. Each pair will be presented three times within a run. Following learning, participants will complete a self-paced 3-alternative forced choice (AFC) inference task during which they will select the C item that shares a common relationship with an A cue. Foils for inference trials will be C items from other ABC triads, of the same face/scene subcategory. Participants will then complete a final, self-paced 3-AFC memory test of premise associations (AB, BC) and NO pairs. To quantify memory retrieval and how overlapping events are organized, before and after learning, participants will view the A and C items during fMRI scanning.

Probabilistic Inference

Participants will visit a virtual "zoo," which is divided into three zones, each containing the same five monsters, but with different likelihoods of occurrence. Participants learn the underlying likelihood distributions by virtually navigating each zone. On each trial, two monsters appear; participants select the monster that they predict will next appear (6s). After making their choice, the correct monster appears and feedback is provided (2s). Participants tour each zone four times across 9 runs. Following learning, participants are tested on probabilistic inference. Here, participants see a series of monster "photographs" and are asked to infer in which zone they were taken. On each trial, a sequence of individual monster images (3.5s each) will then appear (1-6 monsters) prior to a decision screen, in which participants choose which of the two zones most likely produced the "photos" (4s) and are given feedback (1.5s). Participants will perform nine fMRI runs of the inference task.

Primary outcome measure

  • Changes in blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal over time [ Time Frame: 36 months ]
  • Differences in blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal between age groups [ Time Frame: 1 month ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Alison R Preston, PhD

512-475-7255apreston@utexas.edu

Nicole L Varga, Ph.D.

856-304-6771nvarga@austin.utexas.edu

Locations

The University of Texas at Austin

Recruiting

Austin, Texas, United States, 78712

Contacts

Alison R Preston, PhD

512-475-7255apreston@utexas.edu

Nicole L Varga, PhD

856-304-6771nvarga@austin.utexas.edu

Principal Investigator:

Alison R Preston, PhD

More Information

Sponsor

University of Texas at Austin

Last update posted

Sep 30, 2025

Last verified

Sep, 2025

Keywords

  • Hippocampus
  • Medial Prefrontal Cortex
  • Parietal Cortex
  • Memory
  • Reasoning
  • Inference
  • Adolescence
  • Brain Development

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-09. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of Texas at Austin on 2025-09-30.