LPFC Organization in Emotion-Duration Difference Estimation
ConditionHealthy
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18-45
SponsorUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
About this trial
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.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
right-handed
between the ages of 18 and 45
be a fluent English speaker
have normal to corrected-to-normal vision.
Disqualifiers
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;
Trial design
Design model
Single group
Treatments tested in this trial
Emotion valence
Other interventionPositive vs. Negative (temporally extended sequence)
Time
Other intervention∆ Temporal evidence (i.e. relative time difference of stimulus-type exposure across a sequence: 1200 vs. 1800)
TMS Stimulation
DeviceFPl 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).
Treatment groups
50 Participants
are divided into 1 treatment groupGroup A: Duration difference estimationExperimental treatment 3 interventions
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Multivariate BOLD metrics
The investigators will use BOLD activation patterns measured from each ROI to fit quantitative models of emotional valence, time, and action goal encoding. These models will be used to classify stimulus representations on experimental trials to quantify how stimulus representations are encoded in each brain region studies, and how these representations change across experimental manipulations. These measurements will be used to test the impact of stimulus manipulations on stimulus representations in different brain regions.
Time frame
Through study completion, an average of 12-14 months2
Behavioral response
On all trials participants will be instructed to attend carefully to report which valence of emotional images shown for a longer duration by pressing one of two buttons held in their hand inside the scanner. The correct button to be pressed is determined by the valence, the presentation duration, and the color of a triangle (the contextual cue). Investigators will ensure participants are performing the task as instructed by providing practices and assessing the accuracy of their behavioral responses.
Time frame
Through study completion, an average of 12-14 monthsSponsors and contacts
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Source ClinicalTrials.gov