The Impact of Self-processing on Mental Time Travel

ConditionBrain Injuries, Focal

Trial statusRecruiting

Trial phaseNot applicable

Trial typeInterventional

Biological sexAll

Age40-80

SponsorIstituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

About this trial

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward into the past or forward into the future to envision past and future events. This study examines the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT.

Eligibility criteria

This trial accepts healthy volunteers

Qualifiers

the absence of general cognitive impairment, assessed by neuropsychological testing

the presence of a focal brain lesion will be adopted as an inclusion criterion for patients.

Disqualifiers

psychiatric disorders

multiple brain lesions

Trial design

Design model

Parallel

Treatments tested in this trial

Mental Time Travel task
Behavioral
A psychophysical task (D'Angelo et al., 2023) will be adopted. In this task, a projection in time will be "induced" by faces of different ages. Face stimuli will be presented with a short sentence describing a particular life event, commonly occurring around 60. Participants will perform a two-alternative forced-choice task under two experimental conditions. In the "past projection" condition, they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person of the face shown could have experienced the indicated event 10 years earlier. In the "future projection," they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person depicted will experience the indicated event in 10 years.
Age Estimation control task
Behavioral
In this task participants will estimate the age of the faces adopted as stimuli.
Lifeline task
Behavioral
In this task participants will be instructed to associated each event with the age at which they believe it typically occurred.

Treatment groups

66 Participants

are divided into 3 treatment groups

Group A: Healthy participantsActive comparator 3 interventions

Group B: vmPFC patientsExperimental treatment 3 interventions

Group C: not-vmPFC patientsActive comparator 3 interventions

Trial outcomes

Primary outcomes

Likely Responses of events (Percentage)

If the vmPFC plays a crucial role in MTT, by activating and orienting to general knowledge about common life events, then vmPFC patients' probability judgments (% Likely Responses) in the MTT task should not be modulated coherently as a function of the perceived age of the portrayed faces and the Past vs. Future Projection condition. Considering the prominent role played by the vmPFC in future-oriented cognition, we expect that deficits in MTT would be more marked in the Future compared to the Past Projection condition.

Time frame

At baseline

Secondary outcomes

Temporal estimation of cultural prototypical life event (years)

The deficit found in MTT may be related to an impairment in activating general knowledge about common events. If this is the case, it should also result in an impairment in temporally placing cultural events appropriately on a time-line representing the duration of life (in years, from birth to death). Moreover, these difficulties in the temporal ordering of life events would be more marked for relatively future compared to relatively past events.

Time frame

At baseline

Sponsors and contacts

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Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

Lead sponsor

Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive (Cesena)

Collaborator

Source ClinicalTrials.gov

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