The Role of the Locus Coeruleus in Age-related Distractibility

NCT ID: NCT05574634

Last Updated: 2025-08-19

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 200 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-04-11
• Study Completion Date: 2027-06-30

Brief Summary

A growing body of research has highlighted the importance of frontal regions, at both the functional and structural levels, in age-related declines in attentional and cognitive processing. However, the underlying neurobiological pathophysiological changes in the brain that contribute to these declines are still largely unclear. The objective of this proposal is to investigate neural mechanisms of age-related attentional distractibility, focusing on the neural circuit initiated from the locus coeruleus (LC). In the current proposal, the investigators will test the hypothesis that the neural disconnectivity of LC with the salience network (SN) drives failures of ignoring distractors in older adults. The investigators will examine how LC-SN connectivity is associated with selective attention performance, and how improved LC-SN connectivity through a cognitive training program may lead to improved attentional performance.

Conditions

Aging; Alzheimer Disease

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Older adult participants

Older adult participants in the study will complete one of two variants of an attention practice program and that will be preceded by, and followed by, an fMRI scan session featuring an attention task

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Tablet based adaptive multimodal attention practice program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

An adaptive at-home tablet-based program that includes variants of the Flanker Task, the Stroop Task, and a Visual Tracking Task. Each session of practice will include up to ten minutes with each of these task types, and the tasks will increase in difficulty in a way that further taxes attention (such as through more distractors or more incongruent trials) as participant performance improves.

Tablet based adaptive criterion task practice program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

An adaptive, at-home tablet-based variant of the criterion task, that is, the selective attention/distraction task used during the scanning portion of the human participant portions of the study, that takes up to 25 minutes to complete each session.

Younger adult participants

Younger adult participants in the study will complete one fMRI scan session featuring an attention task

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Tablet based adaptive multimodal attention practice program

An adaptive at-home tablet-based program that includes variants of the Flanker Task, the Stroop Task, and a Visual Tracking Task. Each session of practice will include up to ten minutes with each of these task types, and the tasks will increase in difficulty in a way that further taxes attention (such as through more distractors or more incongruent trials) as participant performance improves.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Tablet based adaptive criterion task practice program

An adaptive, at-home tablet-based variant of the criterion task, that is, the selective attention/distraction task used during the scanning portion of the human participant portions of the study, that takes up to 25 minutes to complete each session.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Healthy adult participants
• No younger than 18 and no older than 75 yrs of age
• Ability to provide written informed consent

Exclusion:

• History of surgery involving metal implants
• Possible metal fragments in the eyes
• Pacemaker
• A history of claustrophobia
• Braces
• Weighing over 250 pounds
• Pregnant or possibility of being pregnant.
• Severe medical or psychiatric conditions (e.g., blind or deaf, head trauma)
• Learning disabilities or developmental disabilities

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 75 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Tae-Ho Lee, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Locations

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Blacksburg, Virginia, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Tae-Ho Lee, PhD

Role: CONTACT

taehol@vt.edu

540-231-6174

Benjamin Katz, PhD

Role: CONTACT

katzben@vt.edu

540-231-9816

Facility Contacts

Tae-Ho Lee, PhD

Role: primary

taehol@vt.edu

540-231-6174

Benjamin Katz, PhD

Role: backup

katzben@vt.edu

540-231-9816

Other Identifiers

19-514

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id