Speech Motor Learning and Retention (Aim 3)

Yale University

Status

Not yet enrolling

Conditions

Speech

Treatments

Device: fMRI

Behavioral: Adaptation

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

NIH

Identifiers

NCT06492252

1R01DC022097-01A1 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

2000037622_c

Details and patient eligibility

About

The overall goal of this research is to test a new model of speech motor learning, whose central hypothesis is that learning and retention are associated with plasticity not only in motor areas of the brain but in auditory and somatosensory regions as well. The strategy for the proposed research is to identify individual brain areas that contribute causally to retention by disrupting their activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Investigators will also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which will enable identification of circuit-level activity which predicts either learning or retention of new movements, and hence test the specific contributions of candidate sensory and motor zones. In other studies, investigators will record sensory and motor evoked potentials over the course of learning to determine the temporal order in which individual sensory and cortical motor regions contribute. The goal here is to identify brain areas in which learning-related plasticity occurs first and which among these areas predict subsequent learning.

Full description

The focus of this registration is Aim 3. Excitability will be assessed. In Aim 3, resting-state fMRI will be interleaved with speech motor adaptation, again using Harvard Sentences. Additional scans and retention tests will be conducted 24 hours later, to assess motor memory consolidation.

The Speech Motor Learning and Retention Master Protocol is NCT06467292.

Enrollment

50 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 40 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Fluent English speakers
Right-handed
Normal hearing
No speech disorder or reading disability

Exclusion criteria

Cardiac pacemaker
Aneurysm clip
Heart or Vascular clip
Prosthetic valve
Metal implants
Metal in brain, skull, or spinal cord
Implanted neurostimulator
Medication infusion device
Cochlear implant or tinnitus (ringing in ears)
Personal and/or family history of epilepsy or other neurological disorders or history of head concussion
Psychoactive medications
Pregnancy

Trial design

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

50 participants in 2 patient groups

Altered auditory feedback + fMRI

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will perform learning tasks then undergo fMRI. This procedure will be repeated on day 2. Functional connectivity patterns between regions that predict learning will be assessed. Participants then leave the laboratory and return 24 hours later to assess retention of learning.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Adaptation

Device: fMRI

Behavioral: Adaptation

Control Condition

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in a control condition who will undergo the same procedures, without altered feedback

Treatment:

Behavioral: Adaptation

Device: fMRI

Behavioral: Adaptation