Enhancing Brain Training With Virtual Reality

University of Rochester

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Treatments: Behavioral: Training on a computer screen; Behavioral: Training in Virtual Reality

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03582579

70869

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of brain training in a Virtual Reality set up in neurotypical populations as well as in the traumatic brain injury population.

Full description

Brain training is a large and a growing field, both scientifically and commercially. Emerging evidence demonstrates that training can promote beneficial brain plasticity in both healthy individuals and clinical populations. Much of the recent interest in brain training can be traced back to the seminal work done at the University of Rochester, where Daphne Bavelier and colleagues showed that training with action video games (AVG) can lead to a wide range of cognitive and perceptual improvements. In our recent work, we developed a novel training paradigm that isolates and concentrates the key aspects of AVG-training while eliminating complex and often violent gameplay associated with AVGs. The results revealed similarly broad effects of training as with conventional AVGs. In this study, we aim to move this training paradigm to virtual reality (VR) and extend its application to cognitive aging and mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) populations.

Enrollment: 80 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 75 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

A person is eligible for inclusion in the study if he/she:

• Is an adult over the age of 18.
• Has the capacity to give consent.
• Has normal or corrected to normal vision.
• Has adequate hearing.
• Is a non-action video game player.
• Is a non-VR game player. All subjects will be assigned to one of four groups: a Control Group training in VR, a Control Groups training on a 2D display, an Older Adult Group without dementia training in VR, and a College Athletes with mild TBI Group training in VR.

Specific Inclusion Criteria for both Control Groups. The subject must:

• Be between the ages of 18 and 35.
• Have no neurologic or vascular disorders/injuries.

Specific Inclusion Criteria for the College Athletes with TBI Group. The subject must:

• Be between the ages of 18 and 35.
• Be diagnosed with mild TBI (i.e., concussion) within the last two weeks.

Specific Inclusion Criteria for the Older Adult Group. The subject must:

• Be over the age of 65.
• Have no neurologic or vascular disorders/injuries.

Exclusion criteria

A person will be excluded from the study if he/she:

• Is under the age of 18.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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80 participants in 4 patient groups

Control in VR

Experimental group

Description:

Adults ages 18 to 35 who will be training in Virtual Reality.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Training in Virtual Reality

Control Non-VR

Experimental group

Description:

Adults ages 18 to 35 who will be training on a computer screen.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Training on a computer screen

College Athletes with TBI Group

Experimental group

Description:

Adults ages 18 to 35 with mild TBI who will be training in Virtual Reality

Treatment:

Behavioral: Training in Virtual Reality

Older Adult Group

Experimental group

Description:

Older Adults over the age of 65 who will be training in Virtual Reality

Treatment:

Behavioral: Training in Virtual Reality