Recruiting

Memory Decisions

Sponsor:

Caitlin Bowman

Code:

NCT07440017

Conditions

Aging

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Memory decision type

Study Details

Brief summary:

The goal of this clinical is to learn how the brain supports different kinds of memory decisions in healthy young and older adults. The main question it seeks to answer is: Do older adults make memory decisions by integrating across experiences?

Young (aged 18-30 years) and older (aged 65-80 years) participants will complete a memory task while undergoing functional MRI to measure their brain responses.

Researchers will compare brain measures of integration in older adults to those of young adults to see if integration increases in older age.

Conditions

Aging

Study ID

NCT07440017

Start date

Jun 15, 2026

Status verified date

Jun, 2026

Completion date

Dec 31, 2029

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec 1, 2029

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Either aged 18-30 years (young adults) or aged 65-80 years (older adults) (self-report)
  • Fluent in English (self-report)
  • Right-handed (self-report)
  • Cognitively healthy (self report verified by score > 24 on Montreal Cognitive Assessment)
  • Self-reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Self-reported neurological disorder (e.g., Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease)
  • Self-reported uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, or thyroid disorder
  • Having conditions or devices that are unsafe for MRI (assessed via imaging center's MRI safety screening form)
  • Self-reported difficulty lying still on one's back for 1-2 hours

Study Design

Enrollment

360 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Experimental Arm

This is a within-subject design with a single experimental arm

Interventions

Memory decision type

Subjects will be probed to either remember an association they saw directly during the study phase or to make an inference across indirectly associated items.

Primary outcome measure

  • Behavioral memory responses [ Time Frame: Session 2 (experimental session) ]
  • Neural memory responses [ Time Frame: Session 2 (experimental session) ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Caitlin Bowman, PhD

414-251-5010bowman2@uwm.edu

Locations

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Recruiting

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, 53211

Contacts

Caitlin Bowman, PhD

414-251-5010bowman2@uwm.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Caitlin Bowman

Last update posted

Jun 17, 2026

Last verified

Jun, 2026

Keywords

  • cognitive aging
  • episodic memory
  • fMRI
  • generalization
  • hippocampus
  • prefrontal cortex

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-08. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Caitlin Bowman on 2026-06-17.