Clinical trial NCT03268694: Investigation of Oscillations Underlying Human Cognitive and Affective Processing Using Intracranial EEG
Official title: Investigation of Oscillations Underlying Human Cognitive and Affective Processing Using Intracranial EEG
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: TERMINATED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Working Memory
Emotions
Lead sponsor: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
First posted: 2017-08-31
Enrollment: 4
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: Purpose: To investigate the electrophysiological correlates of human cognition and affective processing. Participants: Drug-resistant epilepsy patients undergoing epilepsy surgery cortical mapping with continuous electrocorticography (ECoG) with intracranial electrodes. Procedures (methods): Participants will perform computer-based cognitive and affective processing tasks during routine long-term monitoring. Intracranial EEG will be collected during the task

Detailed description: Oscillations in different frequency bands like theta, alpha, beta, gamma and high gamma are thought to underlie processing of cognitive and emotional information. For example, theta (3 - 7 Hz) and alpha (8 - 12 Hz) oscillations are known to underlie working memory as well as attentional processing. Theta oscillations are known to differentiate emotional and neutral stimuli while gamma oscillations (30 - 50 Hz) are known to underlie rapid integration of information. The fact that these oscillations are also disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders underline the importance of these oscillations.

A lot of our understanding of these oscillations come from non invasive methods in humans like electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and invasive methods in animal models. However, EEG and MEG measure oscillations that are generated by collective firing of large cortical patches thereby losing spatial resolution. Also activity from deeper structures like amygdala and hippocampus cannot be picked up in these modalities. Animal models often suffer from the poor translation of behavior from animals to humans and vice versa. Intracranial EEG or Electrocorticography (ECoG) helps overcome the drawbacks described above.

Studies using ECoG have become widespread and have been helpful in elucidating the functional roles of different brain regions in cognition and emotion. The investigators aim to utilize these established procedures to study the role of oscillations recorded from different brain regions in cognition and emotion.

Patients with medically refractory epilepsy undergo long-term invasive monitoring for surgical resection planning. Electrodes are implanted subdurally over seizure focus to identify seizure onset zone and patients are often in the epilepsy monitoring unit at the Neuroscience hospital for approximately a week. During this period, intracranial EEG is constantly acquired for clinical investigation. The investigators plan to recruit these patients while they undergo long-term monitoring to leverage the rare access to direct brain recordings and study the role of oscillations in cognitive and affective processing. Patients who provide informed consent to participate in the study will perform computer based cognitive and emotional processing tasks.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. History of medically intractable epilepsy
2. Capable of giving informed consent
3. Aged 18 - 80 years, either sex

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Major systemic illness
2. Severe cognitive impairment defined as mini-mental state examination of less than 20
3. Severe psychiatric illness
4. Excessive use of alcohol or other substances

Primary outcomes:
measure: Intracranial EEG Spectra Power
timeFrame: Intracranial EEG will be collected simultaneously when the participants perform the task. 1 Hour
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Task Performance: Reaction Times
timeFrame: 1 Hour
measure: Intracranial EEG Functional Connectivity Analysis
timeFrame: Intracranial EEG will be collected simultaneously when the participants perform the task. 1 Hour
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chapel Hill
country: United States
facility: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
state: North Carolina
Study officials:
affiliation: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
name: Flavio Frohlich, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
name: Hae Won Shin, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Hsieh LT, Ranganath C. Frontal midline theta oscillations during working memory maintenance and episodic encoding and retrieval. Neuroimage. 2014 Jan 15;85 Pt 2(0 2):721-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.08.003. Epub 2013 Aug 8.
citation: Klimesch W. alpha-band oscillations, attention, and controlled access to stored information. Trends Cogn Sci. 2012 Dec;16(12):606-17. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.10.007. Epub 2012 Nov 7.
citation: Sauseng P, Klimesch W, Heise KF, Gruber WR, Holz E, Karim AA, Glennon M, Gerloff C, Birbaumer N, Hummel FC. Brain oscillatory substrates of visual short-term memory capacity. Curr Biol. 2009 Nov 17;19(21):1846-52. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.062.
citation: Symons AE, El-Deredy W, Schwartze M, Kotz SA. The Functional Role of Neural Oscillations in Non-Verbal Emotional Communication. Front Hum Neurosci. 2016 May 25;10:239. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00239. eCollection 2016.
citation: Bonnefond M, Jensen O. Alpha oscillations serve to protect working memory maintenance against anticipated distracters. Curr Biol. 2012 Oct 23;22(20):1969-74. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.08.029. Epub 2012 Oct 4.
citation: Khader PH, Jost K, Ranganath C, Rosler F. Theta and alpha oscillations during working-memory maintenance predict successful long-term memory encoding. Neurosci Lett. 2010 Jan 14;468(3):339-43. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2009.11.028. Epub 2009 Nov 14.
citation: Miller EK, Buschman TJ. Cortical circuits for the control of attention. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2013 Apr;23(2):216-22. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2012.11.011. Epub 2012 Dec 22.
citation: Bastos AM, Vezoli J, Bosman CA, Schoffelen JM, Oostenveld R, Dowdall JR, De Weerd P, Kennedy H, Fries P. Visual areas exert feedforward and feedback influences through distinct frequency channels. Neuron. 2015 Jan 21;85(2):390-401. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.12.018. Epub 2014 Dec 31.
citation: Jacobs J, Kahana MJ. Direct brain recordings fuel advances in cognitive electrophysiology. Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Apr;14(4):162-71. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.01.005. Epub 2010 Feb 25.
citation: Mendez-Bertolo C, Moratti S, Toledano R, Lopez-Sosa F, Martinez-Alvarez R, Mah YH, Vuilleumier P, Gil-Nagel A, Strange BA. A fast pathway for fear in human amygdala. Nat Neurosci. 2016 Aug;19(8):1041-9. doi: 10.1038/nn.4324. Epub 2016 Jun 13.
citation: Huijgen J, Dinkelacker V, Lachat F, Yahia-Cherif L, El Karoui I, Lemarechal JD, Adam C, Hugueville L, George N. Amygdala processing of social cues from faces: an intracrebral EEG study. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Nov;10(11):1568-76. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv048. Epub 2015 May 11.
citation: Murray RJ, Brosch T, Sander D. The functional profile of the human amygdala in affective processing: insights from intracranial recordings. Cortex. 2014 Nov;60:10-33. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.06.010. Epub 2014 Jun 19.