Contextual Associations During Episodic Recall of Everyday or Virtual Reality

NCT ID: NCT03286387

Last Updated: 2025-09-03

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 95 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2018-10-11
• Study Completion Date: 2019-08-13

Brief Summary

The project is dedicated to development of new paradigms to investigate memory and attention in the rich and realistic environments. The investigator will use modern interactive digital technologies for encoding complex episodes either using mobile phone technology in everyday life or using a virtual reality life-like simulation.

He aims to characterize the role of the medial temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex during recall of naturalistic episodic experiences, using functional neuroimaging (fMRI) in healthy participants. The secondary aim is assess how the allocation of attention during memory encoding contribute to mechanisms of the subsequent recall. He will achieve this by monitoring gaze direction during encoding and by analyzing the retrieval data as a function of the elements that participants attended / fixated during encoding.

The protocol will involve, first, behavioral testing of memory performance with encoding in the real-life or in virtual reality, followed by the main hypothesis testing phase when fMRI will be used to measure brain activity during retrieval.

Conditions

Healthy Volunteers

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Memory for naturalistic episodes

Encoding of episode in real life situations (using Smartphones) or in a virtual environment, followed by memory retrieval (either behavior only or with fMRI, in successive studies)

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Functional brain imaging without any contrast agent

Intervention Type: OTHER

During the fMRI protocol, the subject will perform the retrieval tasks while whole-brain activity will be recorded using Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) that measures the Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal (2x2x2 isotropic voxels, Echo Time (TE) = 30 ms, Repetition Time (TR) = 2.5 sec). The functional session will be subdivided into several parts ("Runs", duration: 10-15 min). Together with the functional data, the protocol will include a structural scan (T1 weighted, 1x1x1 mm voxels; duration 5-7 min) and a field mapping sequence (duration: 1 min).

Interventions

Functional brain imaging without any contrast agent

During the fMRI protocol, the subject will perform the retrieval tasks while whole-brain activity will be recorded using Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) that measures the Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal (2x2x2 isotropic voxels, Echo Time (TE) = 30 ms, Repetition Time (TR) = 2.5 sec). The functional session will be subdivided into several parts ("Runs", duration: 10-15 min). Together with the functional data, the protocol will include a structural scan (T1 weighted, 1x1x1 mm voxels; duration 5-7 min) and a field mapping sequence (duration: 1 min).

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Possession a Smartphone compatible with GPS 3-rd generation and exploitation system Android 4.2 with user-activated geolocation (for mobile phone studies).
• Able to navigate in virtual reality with a help of the keyboard (for virtual reality studies).
• Not using glasses.
• All subjects will give their written consent for participation in the study.
• They will be right-handed
• They will have French social coverage.

Exclusion Criteria

• Previous neurologic or psychiatric disease.
• Cognitive deficits restricting understanding of the tasks.
• Pregnant or breath-feeding women.
• Persons under guardianship, curatorship or any other administrative or judicial measure of deprivation of rights or liberty.
• Subjects currently participating in other study.

• Neurologic, cardiac electrostimulation or defibrillator.
• Cardiac prostheses
• Intracranial clips or clamps
• Cerebrospinal fluid disorders
• Metal particles in the eyes
• Metal dental or articular prostheses
• Diffusion pomp or other infusion system
• Claustrophobia
• Head tattoo , makeup, hair gel

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 40 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Hospices Civils de Lyon

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Emiliano MACALUSO, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

INSERM U1028 - Impact - CRNL

Locations

U1028 INSERM - CNRS UMR 5292 Equipe ImpAct

Bron, , France

Countries

France

References

Foudil SA, Macaluso E. The influence of the precuneus on the medial temporal cortex determines the subjective quality of memory during the retrieval of naturalistic episodes. Sci Rep. 2024 Apr 4;14(1):7943. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-58298-y.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 38575698 (View on PubMed)

Foudil SA, Pleche C, Macaluso E. Memory for spatio-temporal contextual details during the retrieval of naturalistic episodes. Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 16;11(1):14577. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-93960-9.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 34272405 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

2017-A02558-45

Identifier Type: OTHER

Identifier Source: secondary_id

69HCL17_0404

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id