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Mental Strategy Training in Mild Cognitive Impairment

14 juli 2026 uppdaterad av: Jessica Peter

Reducing Hippocampal Hyperactivity in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment

This study aims to reduce hippocampal activity in people at high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and aims to examine whether this improves their episodic memory performance. We apply mental strategy trainings with strategies extracted from our previous study that applied real-time fMRI neurofeedback to reduce hippocampal activity. Participants take part in mental strategy trainings 2, 4, or 6 times. At baseline and after each 2 trainings, we assess their hippocampal activity as well as their episodic memory performance using an fMRI pattern separation task. In addition, we will gather blood samples to obtain Apolipoprotein E gene status (ApoE, only once) as well as plasma pTau (pTau217; 4 time-points). ApoE will be included as a covariate in our statistical models. For pTau217, we will calculate the change between each assessment to examine whether the mental strategy training will change the accumulation of pTau217.

Studieöversikt

Status

Avslutad

Betingelser

Intervention / Behandling

Studietyp

Interventionell

Inskrivning (Faktisk)

55

Fas

  • Inte tillämpbar

Kontakter och platser

Det här avsnittet innehåller kontaktuppgifter för dem som genomför studien och information om var denna studie genomförs.

Studieorter

  • Schweiz
    • Canton of Bern
      • Bern, Canton of Bern, Schweiz, 3000
        • Universitäre Psychiatrische Dienste Bern

Deltagandekriterier

Forskare letar efter personer som passar en viss beskrivning, så kallade behörighetskriterier. Några exempel på dessa kriterier är en persons allmänna hälsotillstånd eller tidigare behandlingar.

Urvalskriterier

Åldrar som är berättigade till studier

  • Vuxen
  • Äldre vuxen

Tar emot friska volontärer

Ja

Beskrivning

Inclusion Criteria:

  • diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment
  • between 60 - 80 years of age
  • fluent in German
  • normal or corrected-to-normal vision
  • normal or corrected-to-normal hearing

Exclusion Criteria:

  • any history of seizures
  • current psychotropic medication
  • other severe neurological or psychiatric disease
  • current or lifetime drug or alcohol abuse
  • severe brain damage other than atrophy in the hippocampus or the medial temporal lobe
  • claustrophobia
  • magnetisable implants (e.g., cardiac pacemakers, brain stimulator)

Studieplan

Det här avsnittet ger detaljer om studieplanen, inklusive hur studien är utformad och vad studien mäter.

Hur är studien utformad?

Designdetaljer

  • Primärt syfte: Behandling
  • Tilldelning: Randomiserad
  • Interventionsmodell: Parallellt uppdrag
  • Maskning: Ingen (Open Label)

Vapen och interventioner

Deltagargrupp / Arm
Intervention / Behandling
Experimentell: Group A: 15 participants will be assigned to group A
Group A will attend 6 mental strategy trainings and will start the training after the first assessment. The training content is identical for all groups. The groups differ only in the number of training sessions and in the timing of the intervention onset (i.e., after the first assessment or after three assessment time points).
Övrig: Mental Strategy Training
Trainings will be done in groups of up to five people. During training, participants will be presented with an implicit pattern separation task (i.e., for which no response is necessary). At the same time, they will apply mental strategies that were beneficial for hippocampal activity reduction in our previous study. We will use four different mental strategies ("Imagination", "Bodily Perception", "Active Thinking" and "Visual Perception") during each of the training sessions. During imagination participants will need to vividly imagine a scene that exerts a calming effect on them. During "bodily perception" participants will be instruced to focus on their feet or hands while slowly contracting and relaxing them. During active thinking they will perform cognitive tasks such as reciting the alphabet or counting. During visual perception they will focus on a specific part of the presented image. The order of the mental strategies is similar for all participants and all trainings.
Experimentell: Group B: 15 participants will be assigned to group B
Group B will attend 4 mental strategy trainings and will start with the training after the first assessment. The training content is identical for all groups. The groups differ only in the number of training sessions and in the timing of the intervention onset (i.e., after the first assessment or after three assessment time points).
Övrig: Mental Strategy Training
Trainings will be done in groups of up to five people. During training, participants will be presented with an implicit pattern separation task (i.e., for which no response is necessary). At the same time, they will apply mental strategies that were beneficial for hippocampal activity reduction in our previous study. We will use four different mental strategies ("Imagination", "Bodily Perception", "Active Thinking" and "Visual Perception") during each of the training sessions. During imagination participants will need to vividly imagine a scene that exerts a calming effect on them. During "bodily perception" participants will be instruced to focus on their feet or hands while slowly contracting and relaxing them. During active thinking they will perform cognitive tasks such as reciting the alphabet or counting. During visual perception they will focus on a specific part of the presented image. The order of the mental strategies is similar for all participants and all trainings.
Experimentell: Group C: 15 participants will be assigned to group C
Group C will attend 2 mental strategy trainings and will start with the training after the first assessment. The training content is identical for all groups. The groups differ only in the number of training sessions and in the timing of the intervention onset (i.e., after the first assessment or after three assessment time points).
Övrig: Mental Strategy Training
Trainings will be done in groups of up to five people. During training, participants will be presented with an implicit pattern separation task (i.e., for which no response is necessary). At the same time, they will apply mental strategies that were beneficial for hippocampal activity reduction in our previous study. We will use four different mental strategies ("Imagination", "Bodily Perception", "Active Thinking" and "Visual Perception") during each of the training sessions. During imagination participants will need to vividly imagine a scene that exerts a calming effect on them. During "bodily perception" participants will be instruced to focus on their feet or hands while slowly contracting and relaxing them. During active thinking they will perform cognitive tasks such as reciting the alphabet or counting. During visual perception they will focus on a specific part of the presented image. The order of the mental strategies is similar for all participants and all trainings.
Aktiv komparator: Group D: 10 participants will be assigned to group D
Group D will attend 2 mental strategy trainings and will start with the training after the third assessment. The training content is identical for all groups. The groups differ only in the number of training sessions and in the timing of the intervention onset (i.e., after the first assessment or after three assessment time points).
Övrig: Mental Strategy Training
Trainings will be done in groups of up to five people. During training, participants will be presented with an implicit pattern separation task (i.e., for which no response is necessary). At the same time, they will apply mental strategies that were beneficial for hippocampal activity reduction in our previous study. We will use four different mental strategies ("Imagination", "Bodily Perception", "Active Thinking" and "Visual Perception") during each of the training sessions. During imagination participants will need to vividly imagine a scene that exerts a calming effect on them. During "bodily perception" participants will be instruced to focus on their feet or hands while slowly contracting and relaxing them. During active thinking they will perform cognitive tasks such as reciting the alphabet or counting. During visual perception they will focus on a specific part of the presented image. The order of the mental strategies is similar for all participants and all trainings.

Vad mäter studien?

Primära resultatmått

Resultatmått
Åtgärdsbeskrivning
Tidsram
Hippocampal activity during the pattern separation task
Tidsram: We assess hippocampal activity 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
In each 4 fMRI sessions, we apply a pattern separation task (i.e., the mnemonic similarity test, MST). Participants need to answer to specific trial types. These are stimuli of everyday objects and the participants have to identify if a stimulus is "new" (they have not seen it before), "old" (exactly the same stimulus has been presented already) or "similar" (a stimulus has been shown before but was different in shape or colour). During each task, we will evaluate their hippocampal activity using similar "lure" trials that rely on pattern separation.
We assess hippocampal activity 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).

Sekundära resultatmått

Resultatmått
Åtgärdsbeskrivning
Tidsram
Pattern completion errors
Tidsram: We will assess pattern completion errors 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
In each 4 fMRI sessions, we apply a pattern separation task (i.e., the mnemonic similarity test, MST). Participants need to answer to specific trial types. These are stimuli of everyday objects and the participants have to identify if a stimulus is "new" (they have not seen it before), "old" (exactly the same stimulus has been presented already) or "similar" (a stimulus has been shown before but was different in shape or colour). Pattern completion errors refer to the mis-identification of similar objects as being old.
We will assess pattern completion errors 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
Pattern Separation success
Tidsram: We will asssess pattern separation success 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
Correct pattern separation occurs when a participant correctly identifies a similar objects as "similar" in the pattern separation task. Compared to the LDI, here we only focus only on correct responses without considering potential response biases.
We will asssess pattern separation success 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
Lure Discrimination Index
Tidsram: We will evaluate the LDI 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).
In each 4 fMRI sessions, participants will perform a pattern separation task (i.e., mnemonic similarity test, MST). A widely used metric to report performance in this task is the lure discrimination index (LDI) which is used to determine pattern separation abilities while accounting for response biases
We will evaluate the LDI 4 times from baseline until the last assessment (approximately 10 weeks later).

Samarbetspartners och utredare

Det är här du hittar personer och organisationer som är involverade i denna studie.

Sponsor

Jessica Peter

Utredare

  • Huvudutredare: Jessica Peter, Professor, University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy

Studieavstämningsdatum

Dessa datum spårar framstegen för inlämningar av studieposter och sammanfattande resultat till ClinicalTrials.gov. Studieposter och rapporterade resultat granskas av National Library of Medicine (NLM) för att säkerställa att de uppfyller specifika kvalitetskontrollstandarder innan de publiceras på den offentliga webbplatsen.

Studera stora datum

Studiestart (Faktisk)

13 februari 2024

Primärt slutförande (Faktisk)

22 oktober 2025

Avslutad studie (Faktisk)

22 oktober 2025

Studieregistreringsdatum

Först inskickad

14 juli 2026

Först inskickad som uppfyllde QC-kriterierna

14 juli 2026

Första postat (Faktisk)

22 juli 2026

Uppdateringar av studier

Senaste uppdatering publicerad (Faktisk)

22 juli 2026

Senaste inskickade uppdateringen som uppfyllde QC-kriterierna

14 juli 2026

Senast verifierad

1 juli 2026

Mer information

Termer relaterade till denna studie

Nyckelord

Ytterligare relevanta MeSH-villkor

Andra studie-ID-nummer

  • 50089

Plan för individuella deltagardata (IPD)

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NEJ

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Nej

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