Clinical trial NCT04419818: A Neuropsychological Test Battery for the Assessment of Time Deficits
Official title: A Neuropsychological Test Battery for the Assessment of Time Deficits in Brain-damaged Patients: a Correlation Study
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Brain Damage
Health Behavior
Keywords: Time perception
Mental Time Travel
Virtual Reality
Lead sponsor: Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Bologna
First posted: 2020-06-05
Enrollment: 96
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 20
Maximum age (years): 85
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Patients will be selected from primary care clinic and they will be compared with matched healthy controls. Healthy controls will be selected from a community sample who volunteer to participate in the research.

Brief summary: Time processing involves different abilities - i.e. estimating the duration of an event and moving in past and future time - and it is a fundamental ability in everyday life. For these reasons the assessment and the rehabilitation of time deficits in brain damaged patients is extremely important.

The ability to estimate and reproduce time processing is usually evaluated using computerized tasks and it is influenced by aging: young participants overestimate and elderly participants underestimate time durations.

Virtual Reality is an ecological approach that has recently been used for the assessment of cognitive deficits. Here we use Virtual Reality to study the ability to estimate time duration of an action execution and perception in a simulated everyday activity.

Detailed description: Time processing involves different abilities - i.e. estimating the duration of an event and moving in past and future time - and it is a fundamental ability in everyday life. However, in neuropsychology, time processing is routinely neglected in the assessment of cognitive deficits in brain-damaged patients. The discrepancy between the importance of time processing and the lack of instruments for the diagnosis of time deficits in brain damaged patients can be mainly due to the fact that time difficulties fail to emerge in a hospital context where daily activities are routinely scheduled by careers. Thus, time deficits become critical only when patients return home and, for younger patients, when they go back to working activities. For these reasons the assessment and the rehabilitation of time deficits in brain damaged patients is extremely important.

Interestingly, recent evidence has begun to demonstrate that our perceptions and sensations are influenced by motor movements and actions. Further, there is also evidence suggesting that movement not only biases perceived time, but can enhance it, suggesting the motor system directly influences temporal perception.

The ability to estimate and reproduce time in actions is usually evaluated using computerized tasks and it is influenced by aging: young participants overestimate and elderly participants underestimate time durations.

Virtual Reality is an ecological approach that has recently been used for the assessment of cognitive deficits. Here we use Virtual Reality to study the ability to estimate time duration of an action execution and perception in a simulated everyday activity.

The primary aim of the project is to measure the impact of time deficits and its effects on everyday life: a neuropsychological battery assessing time processing (Time Estimation, Time Reproduction, Mental Time Travel) is tested using both computerized and virtual reality tasks.

Moreover, the project aims also to investigate i) the correlation between Time Reproduction in a computerized task and the ability to reproduce the duration of an executed action in Virtual Reality; ii) the correlation between Time Estimation in a computerized task and the ability to estimate the duration of an executed action in Virtual Reality.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* patients with focal right and left brain-damage

Exclusion Criteria:

* generalized cognitive impairment (score lower than 24 at the Mini Mental State Examination)
* psychiatric disorders
* additional neurological disorders
* abusive use of alcohol or illicit drugs

Primary outcomes:
measure: Assessment of Mental Time Travel Ability on the Mental Time Travel (MTT) Task
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Time Estimation Ability on the Time Estimation Task - long intervals
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Time Estimation Ability on the Time Estimation Task - short intervals
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Time Reproduction Ability on the Time Reproduction Task - long intervals
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Time Reproduction Ability on the Time Reproduction Task - short intervals
timeFrame: baseline
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Assessment of Verbal Estimation Ability on the Time and Weight Estimation Test (STEP)
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Verbal Estimation Ability on the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET)
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Functional Abilities on the Questionnaire of Temporal Ability
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of General Cognitive Functioning on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE)
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Assessment of Verbal Comprehension on the Token Test
timeFrame: baseline
measure: Correlation between Time Estimation, Time Reproduction and Virtual Reality
timeFrame: baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Castel Goffredo
country: Italy
facility: ICS Maugeri IRCCS, U.O. di Rieducazione e Recupero funzionale di Castel Goffredo
state: Mantova
Study officials:
affiliation: Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS
name: Francesca Frassinetti, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
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citation: Frassinetti F, Magnani B, Oliveri M. Prismatic lenses shift time perception. Psychol Sci. 2009 Aug;20(8):949-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02390.x. Epub 2009 Jun 22.
citation: Patane I, Farne A, Frassinetti F. Prismatic Adaptation Induces Plastic Changes onto Spatial and Temporal Domains in Near and Far Space. Neural Plast. 2016;2016:3495075. doi: 10.1155/2016/3495075. Epub 2016 Feb 14.
citation: Wiener M, Zhou W, Bader F, Joiner WM. Movement Improves the Quality of Temporal Perception and Decision-Making. eNeuro. 2019 Aug 20;6(4):ENEURO.0042-19.2019. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0042-19.2019. Print 2019 Jul/Aug.
citation: Cantarella G, Vianello G, Vezzadini G, Frassinetti F, Ciaramelli E, Candini M. Time bisection and reproduction: Evidence for a slowdown of the internal clock in right brain damaged patients. Cortex. 2023 Oct;167:303-317. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.05.024. Epub 2023 Jul 25.