Identifying the Neural Correlates of Mental Simulation in Multi-Step Planning

New York University (NYU)

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Planning; Problem Solving; Decision Making; Mental Simulation; Cognition

Treatments: Behavioral: Four-in-a-Row Task

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT07293637

24-1331

1R01MH134979-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Planning is the ability to think ahead by considering possible future actions and their consequences. This research study aims to understand how the brain supports multi-step planning by testing whether people simulate promising future move sequences while deciding what to do next. Healthy adult volunteers will learn and play a strategy game called "Four-in-a-Row" (similar to Connect Four). Participants will complete two sessions on successive days: an online behavioral training/playing session and an in-person brain-recording session at New York University. During the brain-recording session, participants will view mid-game board positions and choose the best move while the study team records brain activity (using magnetoencephalography [MEG] or functional MRI [fMRI]) and eye movements. Data from the game and eye tracking will also be used to fit computational models of planning that help interpret the neural measurements.

Full description

This is a human neuroimaging study consisting of two related experiments designed to characterize the neural correlates of mental simulation during multi-step planning in the "Four-in-a-Row" game. Planning is modeled as a feature-based heuristic evaluation combined with look-ahead (tree search) that evaluates candidate actions by simulating future states and outcomes.

Participants complete two sessions on successive days. Session 1 is a ~60-minute online behavioral session in which participants learn the rules of Four-in-a-Row (including a comprehension/quiz check) and play multiple games against computer opponents spanning difficulty levels. Behavioral data from Session 1 are used to fit a computational model of planning for each participant.

Session 2 is an in-person neuroimaging session with simultaneous eye tracking. In the MEG experiment, participants complete a feature localizer followed by a primary planning task in which they evaluate mid-game board positions with a fixed decision window (e.g., 15 seconds) to encourage planning. B2 In the fMRI experiment, participants complete a planning task while BOLD activity and eye movements are recorded, using a trial structure designed to dissociate model-derived quantities such as myopic value and tree-search value.

The main analyses will test where (fMRI) and when (MEG) the brain represents simulated future states, their values, and the evolving decision process, guided by participant-specific computational-model predictions.

Enrollment: 50 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 64 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• N/A

Exclusion criteria

• History of neurological or psychiatric illness
• Vulnerable populations

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 1 patient group

MEG cohort

Experimental group

Description:

Single-group study in healthy adults. Participants complete a behavioral training session and then an in-person session performing the Four-in-a-Row planning task during MEG (with an additional MEG localizer task, as applicable).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Four-in-a-Row Task