Clinical trial NCT06467305: Speech Motor Learning and Retention (Aim 1)
Official title: Sensorimotor Basis of Speech Motor Learning and Retention
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Speech
Keywords: Speech Motor Learning
Retention
Lead sponsor: Yale University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
First posted: 2024-06-21
Enrollment: 160
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 40
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Healthy right-handed adults with normal hearing will be recruited in equal number from both sexes. All participants will be fluent English speakers.
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The overall goal of this research is to test a new model of speech motor learning, whose central hypothesis is that learning and retention are associated with plasticity not only in motor areas of the brain but in auditory and somatosensory regions as well. The strategy for the proposed research is to identify individual brain areas that contribute causally to retention by disrupting their activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Investigators will also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which will enable identification of circuit-level activity which predicts either learning or retention of new movements, and hence test the specific contributions of candidate sensory and motor zones. In other studies, investigators will record sensory and motor evoked potentials over the course of learning to determine the temporal order in which individual sensory and cortical motor regions contribute. The goal here is to identify brain areas in which learning-related plasticity occurs first and which among these areas predict subsequent learning.

Detailed description: The focus of this registration is Aim 1. The work in Specific Aim 1 involves tests of speech motor memory retention following disruption of left hemisphere brain activity in either auditory, somatosensory or motor cortex or to a control site (hand area motor cortex right hemisphere). Continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) is delivered following adaptation to altered auditory feedback to assess its effects on the retention of new learning. In the adaptation task, participants read Harvard Sentences aloud, which are presented on a computer monitor. Vocal output is altered in real-time and played back to participants through headphones. Tests of retention are conducted 24 hours later.

The Speech Motor Learning and Retention Master Protocol has uniqueID 2000037622.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Fluent English speakers
* Right-handed
* Normal hearing
* No speech disorder or reading disability

Exclusion Criteria:

* Cardiac pacemaker
* Aneurysm clip
* Heart or Vascular clip
* Prosthetic valve
* Metal implants
* Metal in brain, skull, or spinal cord
* Implanted neurostimulator
* Medication infusion device
* Cochlear implant or tinnitus (ringing in ears)
* Personal and/or family history of epilepsy or other neurological disorders or history of head concussion
* Psychoactive medications
* Pregnancy

Primary outcomes:
measure: Speech motor learning
timeFrame: Performance as measured at the end of learning (30 minute session)
measure: Retention of learning
timeFrame: 24 hours after learning (re-test lasts 30 minutes)
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New Haven
country: United States
facility: Yale Child Study Center
state: Connecticut
Study officials:
affiliation: Yale University
name: David Ostry
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: