Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain in Social and Emotional Reasoning

March 3, 2008 updated by: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Reasoning About Social and Economic Knowledge: Identifying the Role of the Human Prefrontal Cortex Using Functional Neuroimaging

This study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify brain regions involved in social and emotional reasoning. It will identify differences in brain activity during task performance between people who have a nervous system illness and those who do not. MRI is a diagnostic tool that uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to produce images of structural and chemical changes in the brain.

Healthy normal volunteers between 21 and 55 years of age who are right-handed and are native English speakers may be eligible for this study. Candidates will be screened with a medical history, including psychiatric and neurological information.

Participants will be asked to perform social and emotional reasoning tasks, such as sorting and judging rules and rule violations, while undergoing MRI scanning. Some tasks may simply involve viewing items on a screen. Others may involve solving complex problems and responding by pressing buttons. During the scan, the subject lies on a table in a narrow cylinder (the scanner) containing a magnetic field. The scan will last about 2 hours, with subjects asked to lie still for up to 10 minutes at a time.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Detailed Description

The purpose of the protocol is to localize the neural regions and systems mediating the forms of knowledge representations hypothesized by the principal investigator to be stored in the human prefrontal cortex. Utilizing a variety of experimental neuropsychological tasks during functional MRI, we will investigate hypotheses regarding the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in planning, problem solving, economic exchange and reasoning; and the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in social cognition and emotional processing. We will ascertain the relationship between so-called [cold] cognitive processes such as planning and [hot] social processes such as mate choice and specific brain regions within the prefrontal cortex. We will also attempt to determine the relationship between non-frontal neural structures involved in emotional expression, such as the amygdala, and those frontal neural structures involved in executive functions that may modulate emotion. In addition, we will attempt to determine the requirements for frontal-parietal versus frontal-temporal network involvement in spatial landmark tasks. The data that we collect in this protocol will be of value in identifying a set of neural regions and distributed networks mediating the forms of knowledge representation stored in the prefrontal cortex. These questions will be addressed over seven separate studies with healthy, normal adult volunteers. The studies will employ within- and between-subject, event-related fMRI designs. The data collected will consist of behavioral measures of cognitive and emotional performance/judgment and corresponding fMRI images.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment

330

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Maryland
      • Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20892
        • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

INCLUSION CRITERIA:

In all the studies, subjects will consist of healthy, native English-speaking, right-handed volunteers, as measured by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. Subjects will range in age from 21 to 55 years old and they will be included regardless of race.

In studies 4 and 5, equal numbers of males and females will be recruited owing to previous findings of significant sex differences on such tests. In all other studies subjects will be recruited indiscriminately on the basis of sex.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

Non-native English speakers and non-right handers will be excluded as mentioned above, as will non-neurologically normal volunteers. Subjects younger than 21 and older than 55 will be excluded. A pregnancy test will be employed with all women of childbearing age. The results must be negative in order to proceed with the MRI.

Subjects with any of the following: aneurysm clip; implanted neural stimulator; implanted cardiac pacemaker or auto-defibrillator; cochlear implant; ocular foreign body, e.g. metal shavings; insulin pump; or irremovable body piercing will be excluded from the study due to the possible dangerous effects of the magnet upon metal objects in the body.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2003

Study Completion

May 1, 2005

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 14, 2003

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 13, 2003

First Posted (Estimate)

May 14, 2003

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 4, 2008

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 3, 2008

Last Verified

May 1, 2005

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 030197
  • 03-N-0197

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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