Studying the Neuronal Basis of Human Social Cognition
ConditionNeurosciences
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18+
SponsorMassachusetts General Hospital
About this trial
This proposal aims to study the role that the dorsal prefrontal cortex plays in human social cognition.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
18 years old or older
patients able to give informed consent
Disqualifiers
Children under 18
Significant co-morbidities
Claustrophobia or general anxiety that may impact intraoperative testing
Use of CNS-active medications including stimulants and antipsychotics which may alter
Trial design
Design model
Single group
Treatments tested in this trial
Behavioral testing during neuronal recordings
BehavioralParticipants undergoing clinically planned neurosurgical procedures will undergo single-neuronal recordings as they perform brief behavioral tasks.
Treatment groups
20 Participants
are divided into 1 treatment groupGroup A: Neurosurgical subjectsExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Number of neurons displaying changes in activity related to task events
Neuronal signals will be recorded during performance of a language-based social task over a 15 minute period. A multinomial logistic regression analyses will be used to evaluate for changes in neuronal activity that are associated with social versus non-social task events. Neuronal activity will be measured as the number of spikes recorded during each event, with each event lasting for approximately one second. Significance threshold will be set to p \< 0.01. The primary outcome measure will be the proportion of neurons that reach significance threshold and therefore display task-related modulation.
Time frame
15 minutesSecondary outcomes
1
Percentage of task events that can be correctly predicted from neuronal activity
Neuronal signals will be recorded during performance of a language-based social task over a 15 minute period. Support vector machines will be used to determine whether changes neuronal activity can accurately predict the participants task performance. Neuronal activity will be measured as the number of spikes recorded during each question-answer event, with each event lasting for approximately one second. Significance threshold will be set to p \< 0.01. The primary outcome measure will be the percentage of events that are predicted correctly.
Time frame
15 minutesSponsors and contacts
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Massachusetts General Hospital
Lead sponsor
Brown University
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov