BID LTM Digital Intervention in Aging

Behavioral Intervention Development Core - Long Term Memory Digital Intervention in Aging

Healthy aging is typically accompanied by diminished capability for learning and retrieval of high-fidelity long-term memory (LTM). The decline in these faculties is accelerated and becomes significant deficits in LTM and cognitive control functions at the level or a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Training with the navigation game, relative to training with control games, is expected to improve LTM performance for older adult participants.

Researchers will compare two different digital interventions to assess whether they may be helpful in improving cognitive function.

Participants will conduct study activities remotely (e.g., at-home):

1. Baseline Assessment. Complete a series of cognitive assessments and surveys.
2. Intervention. Engage in a digital intervention for up to 8 weeks.
3. Post Intervention Assessment. Complete the same cognitive assessments and surveys as the Baseline Assessment.
4. Follow-Up Assessment. Six months after the intervention ends, participants will complete the same cognitive assessments and surveys as the Baseline Assessment.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Mild Cognitive Impairment; Inhibitory Control; Long-Term Memory
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Long Term Memory; Behavioral: Worder

Detailed Description

Older adult participants consent and enroll in the LTM Digital Intervention, which is a randomized control trial (RCT) administered on the Neuroscape Nexus web-based research platform. Enrolled participants are randomly assigned to either of two arms that will play memory-based games.

Participants are provided by the study team with an Apple iPad 10th Generation (2024) at their home address, which will enable them to complete all study tasks at home via Nexus. All required applications will be pre-loaded on the device.

Participants will receive notifications and reminders to complete study tasks by email, through in-app reminders, or SMS. They can view their task list and progress in their personal dashboard in Nexus.

Study procedures include a series of surveys and brief tests of memory and attention as Baseline Tests, which make take up to 120 minutes and can be completed across more than one session.

Participants will engage with their assigned training application to complete 45 minutes of training, several days a week for up to 8 weeks for a total of 1000 minutes of training. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two intervention apps, which encourage long-term memory.

Once their assigned training regimen is complete, participants will again fulfill a series of surveys and brief tests of memory and attention as Post-Training Tests, which make take up to 120 minutes and can be completed across more than one session.

Six months after completion of all Post-Training Tests, participants will be fulfill a third series of surveys and brief tests of memory and attention as Follow-Up Tests, which make take up to 120 minutes and can be completed across more than one session.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 150
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Melissa Arioli, AB; Phone Number: (415) 502-7321; Email: bid.core@ucsf.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • San Francisco, California, United States, 94158
      • Recruiting
      • University of California, San Francsico

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Minimum of 12 years of education
• English fluency: All task instructions are presented in English language text. In order to control for sufficient and equivalent participant comprehension of the procedures and instructions, we require their self-report of fluency in English.
• Normal or corrected-to-normal vision
• Normal or corrected-to-normal hearing
• Medically healthy older adults, including those with below-average cognitive performance /MCI patients without dementia referred by neuropsychologists (i.e., no participant medical records will be reviewed).

Exclusion Criteria:

• Under the age of 60
• Clinical diagnosis of neurological or psychiatric disorder Clinical diagnosis of dementia or AD8 score of >4
• Visually or hearing impaired without correction to normal
• Regularly (one or more times per week) practicing an instrument within the last year
• 10 years or more of formal musical instrument training

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Triple

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Long Term Memory; Multi-session cognitive intervention as a computer game that presents an adaptive spatial wayfinding challenge.	Behavioral: Long Term Memory; Tablet computer game designed to stimulate environmental enrichment via an adaptive and immersive experience learning virtual neighborhoods and errands in order to complete assigned errands.
Active Comparator: Worder; Multi-session cognitive intervention as a computer game that presents a word puzzle.	Behavioral: Worder; Tablet computer game designed to stimulate interest in solving word puzzles, much like the Boggle game.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
MDT change in recognition memory	Psychometric test for proportion correct in memory for studied images of common objects versus paired similar lures	baseline promptly before, post-training promptly after regimen is completed, and follow up six months after post-training tests
TOUR change in cued recall memory	Psychometric test for proportion of details correctly recalled from recent autobiographical memory	baseline promptly before, post-training promptly after regimen is completed, and follow up six months after post-training tests

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cognitive Assessment change in working memory	Psychometric test for proportion of number of correctly identified images from working memory span	baseline promptly before, post-training promptly after regimen is completed, and follow up six months after post-training tests

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco
• Collaborators: National Institute on Aging (NIA)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Peter E Wais, PhD, University of California, San Francisco

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 20, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): January 31, 2028
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 31, 2028

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 24, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 31, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): April 8, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 2, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 31, 2026
• Last Verified: March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: memory; cognitive training; cognitive aging
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurocognitive Disorders; Cognition Disorders; Cognitive Dysfunction; Mathematical Concepts; Recurrent Neural Networks; Neural Networks, Computer; Long Short Term Memory
• Other Study ID Numbers: 24-43268; P30AG086635 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: De-identified data to be shared includes demographic, cognitive assessments, survey, and behavioral outcomes.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; ICF; ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No