Viewing Study NCT00001920



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Last Modification Date: 2024-10-26 @ 9:02 AM
Study NCT ID: NCT00001920
Status: COMPLETED
Last Update Posted: 2017-07-02
First Post: 1999-11-03

Brief Title: Eye Blink Response in Healthy Volunteers and Adults With Schizophrenia
Sponsor: National Institute of Mental Health NIMH
Organization: National Institutes of Health Clinical Center CC

Study Overview

Official Title: Investigation of Brain Function During Eyeblink Responding in Normal Volunteers and Patients With Schizophrenia A Study of Behavior and Evoked Potentials
Status: COMPLETED
Status Verified Date: 2010-06-02
Last Known Status: None
Delayed Posting: No
If Stopped, Why?: Not Stopped
Has Expanded Access: False
If Expanded Access, NCT#: N/A
Has Expanded Access, NCT# Status: N/A
Acronym: None
Brief Summary: The purpose of this study is to explore how the brain works during particular memory tasks in people with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers

Research has shown that patients with schizophrenia have structural and functional abnormalities in the hippocampus and cerebellum of their brains These abnormalities are likely associated with the memory impairment experienced by these patients Eye blink tests can provide information about memory acquisition involving the cerebellar and hippocampal regions By altering the stimuli interval these tests can distinguish between cerebellum-dependent memory associated with subliminal mnemonic encoding and hippocampus-dependent memory associated with conscious awareness This study will use eyeblink tests to determine which type of memory is predominantly affected in schizophrenia

Participants in this study will be screened with a physical and psychiatric examination Participants will have an electroencephalogram EEG an electrocardiogram ECG and an electrodermal test Evoked potentials and magnetic resonance imaging MRI scans of the brain may also be taken
Detailed Description: Eyeblink conditioning is a paradigm that allows the study of aspects of the neural mechanism of memory in humans This paradigm has been extensively studied in animals and human beings and its functional neuroanatomy appears to be well understood involving the hippocampus and cerebellum The performance on this task is most likely independent of subject motivation Moreover manipulation of the intervals between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli allows to study subliminal forms of mnemonic encoding delay task as well as learning that is associated with conscious awareness trace task This makes eyeblink conditioning particularly suited for study in patient populations and particularly in schizophrenia where motivation and attention are frequently confounding factors in the study of memory processes

Patients with schizophrenia have been reported to have hippocampal and possibly cerebellar structural and functional abnormalities however eyeblink conditioning has been minimally studied in this patient population We expect implicit forms of memory cerebellum dependent to be relatively spared as compared to declarative memory hippocampus dependent in schizophrenia

We would like to test the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in acquiring the trace form of the task as opposed to the delay where we assume they would be unimpaired as compared to normal controls We would also like to study heart rate and skin conductance changes that occur during conditioning since patients with schizophrenia have showed impaired autonomic function

We also plan to study neurophysiological correlates of these behaviors with evoked response potentials EP and eventually functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI

We expect EPs to show significant change in relation to development of the behavioral response The association of awareness of the stimulus contingency with slow cortical potentials on the EEG will also be of interest

Study Oversight

Has Oversight DMC: None
Is a FDA Regulated Drug?: None
Is a FDA Regulated Device?: None
Is an Unapproved Device?: None
Is a PPSD?: None
Is a US Export?: None
Is an FDA AA801 Violation?: None
Secondary IDs
Secondary ID Type Domain Link
99-M-0166 None None None