ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT00001360Updated Nov 9, 2026

Studies of Blood Flow to the Brain During Thought

An observational study in Healthy Volunteer, sponsored by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 65 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-11-09.

Sponsored by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) · Observational

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Sep 1993; still recruiting 33 years 1 month later.
Study type
Observational
Model
Cohort
Time perspective
Cross-sectional
Enrollment
4,100
Ages
18 Years to 65 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this study is to use brain imaging technology to measure changes in blood flow to areas in the brain as individuals perform intellectual tasks.

This study will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine blood flow to areas of the brain as participants engage in tasks associated with visual perception, visual recognition, and memory....

Read the detailed description

Objective:

Our goal is to study the functional organization of the intact human brain by combining cognitive tasks and neuroimaging. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) will be used to measure brain activity in healthy human subjects engaged in performing cognitive tasks. These tasks will address specific questions concerning the neural systems that mediate perception, attention, memory, decision-making, emotion, plasticity and social interactions. fMRI and MEG, respectively, will be employed to investigate the spatial and temporal aspects of these neural systems.

Study Population:

Normal volunteer participants aged 18-65, who are in good general health will be recruited from the local community and studied under this minimal risk protocol.

Design:

Subjects will perform cognitive tasks in behavioral and/or neuroimaging sessions (fMRI or MEG).

Outcome Measures:

Behavior as performance on cognitive tasks, and brain activity (fMRI and MEG) will be combined to yield information about the neural correlates and processes underlying different aspects of human cognition including visual perception, memory, learning, emotion, social cognition, decision-making and attention.

02

Conditions studied

  • Healthy Volunteer

Keywords

  • Cognition
  • Vision
  • Cortex
  • Visual Processing
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Natural History
03

In context

Lead sponsor

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead sponsor of 367 studies on the registry; 45 are open to participants now.

Of its 25 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 24 (96%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 65 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes
Sampling method
Non-probability sample

Study population

Normal volunteer participants aged 18-65, who are in good general health will be recruited from the local community and studied under this minimal risk protocol.

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Healthy adults, with at least a high school education, aged 18 to 65 years, will be recruited to participate in the study.
  • Able to read and write in English to guarantee understanding of all written and spoken instructions, which are in English.

Exclusion criteria

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

  • Subjects will be excluded if they:
  • have evidence of, or a history of:
  • major medical, neurological or psychiatric illness
  • serious head injury
  • learning disability-drug or alcohol abuse or dependence in the past 3 months, except nicotine

-are taking prescription drugs or supplements that may affect brain function-

-have serious vision or hearing problems

In addition to the above, additional exclusion criteria apply for all MRI studies:

  • Female subjects who are pregnant or have a positive pregnancy test 24 hours prior to an experiment will be excluded from neuroimaging studies.
  • All subjects will be questioned prior to MRI scanning for possible occupational exposure to metal slivers or shavings, which may have become accidentally lodged in the tissues of the head or neck. Subjects with surgical clips or shrapnel in or near the brain or blood vessels, subjects with cochlear implants, subjects with any metallic body in the eye or CNS, and subjects with any form of implant wire or metal device which may concentrate radiofrequency fields will be excluded from MRI scanning experiments because of possible risks during MRI scanning. Those whose history is suggestive of such a problem will also be excluded from the MRI portion of the experiments. They may still participate in the behavioral and MEG experiments.
  • Subjects unable to lie flat on their back for up to 3 hours may not be eligible to participate in MRI scans.
05

Study design

Observational model
Cohort
Time perspective
Cross-sectional
Enrollment
4,100 participants (estimated)

Groups and cohorts

  • 1

    Normal volunteer participants aged 18-65 who are in good general health.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Cognitive tasks and neuroimaging.

    Cognitive tasks and neuroimaging.

    Time frame: ongoing

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
    Bethesda, Maryland 20892, United States
    Recruiting
    • NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment (OPR) · Contactccopr@nih.gov · 800-411-1222
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Andersen RA, Asanuma C, Essick G, Siegel RM. Corticocortical connections of anatomically and physiologically defined subdivisions within the inferior parietal lobule. J Comp Neurol. 1990 Jun 1;296(1):65-113. doi: 10.1002/cne.902960106. PubMed 2358530 ↗
  • Baizer JS, Ungerleider LG, Desimone R. Organization of visual inputs to the inferior temporal and posterior parietal cortex in macaques. J Neurosci. 1991 Jan;11(1):168-90. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.11-01-00168.1991. PubMed 1702462 ↗
  • Barbas H, Mesulam MM. Organization of afferent input to subdivisions of area 8 in the rhesus monkey. J Comp Neurol. 1981 Aug 10;200(3):407-31. doi: 10.1002/cne.902000309. PubMed 7276245 ↗
  • Teichmann L, Hebart MN, Baker CI. Dynamic Representation of Multidimensional Object Properties in the Human Brain. J Neurosci. 2026 Mar 4;46(9):e1057252026. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1057-25.2026. PubMed 41629159 ↗
  • Wardle SG, Rispoli B, Roopchansingh V, Baker CI. Brief Encounters with Real Objects Modulate the Medial Parietal But Not Occipitotemporal Cortex. J Neurosci. 2025 Dec 10;45(50):e0834252025. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0834-25.2025. PubMed 41193255 ↗
  • Kan C, Stirnberg R, Montequin M, Gulban OF, Morgan AT, Bandettini PA, Huber L. T1234: A distortion-matched structural scan solution to misregistration of high resolution fMRI data. Magn Reson Med. 2025 Aug;94(2):713-723. doi: 10.1002/mrm.30480. Epub 2025 Mar 13. PubMed 40079433 ↗
  • Japee S, Jordan J, Licht J, Lokey S; Moebius Syndrome Research Consortium; Chen G, Snow J, Jabs EW, Webb BD, Engle EC, Manoli I, Baker C, Ungerleider LG. Inability to move one's face dampens facial expression perception. Cortex. 2023 Dec;169:35-49. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.08.014. Epub 2023 Sep 30. PubMed 37852041 ↗
  • Avery JA, Carrington M, Martin A. A common neural code for representing imagined and inferred tastes. Prog Neurobiol. 2023 Apr;223:102423. doi: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2023.102423. Epub 2023 Feb 17. PubMed 36805499 ↗
  • Bainbridge WA, Baker CI. Multidimensional memory topography in the medial parietal cortex identified from neuroimaging of thousands of daily memory videos. Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 31;13(1):6508. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34075-1. PubMed 36316315 ↗
  • Liu TT, Fu JZ, Chai Y, Japee S, Chen G, Ungerleider LG, Merriam EP. Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex in response to viewing emotionally expressive faces. Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 22;13(1):6302. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33580-7. PubMed 36273204 ↗
  • Teichmann L, Moerel D, Rich AN, Baker CI. The nature of neural object representations during dynamic occlusion. Cortex. 2022 Aug;153:66-86. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.04.009. Epub 2022 Apr 26. PubMed 35597052 ↗
  • Hall EH, Bainbridge WA, Baker CI. Highly similar and competing visual scenes lead to diminished object but not spatial detail in memory drawings. Memory. 2022 Mar;30(3):279-292. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2021.2010761. Epub 2021 Dec 16. PubMed 34913412 ↗
  • Gotts SJ, Milleville SC, Martin A. Enhanced inter-regional coupling of neural responses and repetition suppression provide separate contributions to long-term behavioral priming. Commun Biol. 2021 Apr 20;4(1):487. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02002-7. PubMed 33879819 ↗
  • Groen IIA, Silson EH, Pitcher D, Baker CI. Theta-burst TMS of lateral occipital cortex reduces BOLD responses across category-selective areas in ventral temporal cortex. Neuroimage. 2021 Apr 15;230:117790. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117790. Epub 2021 Jan 23. PubMed 33497776 ↗
  • Avery JA, Liu AG, Ingeholm JE, Gotts SJ, Martin A. Viewing images of foods evokes taste quality-specific activity in gustatory insular cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jan 12;118(2):e2010932118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2010932118. PubMed 33384331 ↗
  • Bainbridge WA, Baker CI. Reply to Intraub. Curr Biol. 2020 Dec 21;30(24):R1465-R1466. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.032. PubMed 33352123 ↗
  • Bainbridge WA, Hall EH, Baker CI. Distinct Representational Structure and Localization for Visual Encoding and Recall during Visual Imagery. Cereb Cortex. 2021 Mar 5;31(4):1898-1913. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa329. PubMed 33285563 ↗
  • Huang L, Wang L, Shen W, Li M, Wang S, Wang X, Ungerleider LG, Zhang X. A source for awareness-dependent figure-ground segregation in human prefrontal cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Dec 1;117(48):30836-30847. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1922832117. Epub 2020 Nov 16. PubMed 33199608 ↗
  • Roth ZN, Ryoo M, Merriam EP. Task-related activity in human visual cortex. PLoS Biol. 2020 Nov 6;18(11):e3000921. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000921. eCollection 2020 Nov. PubMed 33156829 ↗
  • Hebart MN, Zheng CY, Pereira F, Baker CI. Revealing the multidimensional mental representations of natural objects underlying human similarity judgements. Nat Hum Behav. 2020 Nov;4(11):1173-1185. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-00951-3. Epub 2020 Oct 12. PubMed 33046861 ↗
  • Yue X, Robert S, Ungerleider LG. Curvature processing in human visual cortical areas. Neuroimage. 2020 Nov 15;222:117295. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117295. Epub 2020 Aug 21. PubMed 32835823 ↗
  • Hart Y, Vaziri-Pashkam M, Mahadevan L. Early warning signals in motion inference. PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 May 29;16(5):e1007821. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007821. eCollection 2020 May. PubMed 32469884 ↗
  • Zhang H, Japee S, Stacy A, Flessert M, Ungerleider LG. Anterior superior temporal sulcus is specialized for non-rigid facial motion in both monkeys and humans. Neuroimage. 2020 Sep;218:116878. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116878. Epub 2020 Apr 28. PubMed 32360168 ↗
  • Vernet M, Quentin R, Japee S, Ungerleider LG. From visual awareness to consciousness without sensory input: The role of spontaneous brain activity. Cogn Neuropsychol. 2020 May-Jun;37(3-4):216-219. doi: 10.1080/02643294.2020.1731442. Epub 2020 Feb 25. PubMed 32093525 ↗
  • Bainbridge WA, Baker CI. Boundaries Extend and Contract in Scene Memory Depending on Image Properties. Curr Biol. 2020 Feb 3;30(3):537-543.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.12.004. Epub 2020 Jan 23. PubMed 31983637 ↗
  • Huber L, Finn ES, Handwerker DA, Bonstrup M, Glen DR, Kashyap S, Ivanov D, Petridou N, Marrett S, Goense J, Poser BA, Bandettini PA. Sub-millimeter fMRI reveals multiple topographical digit representations that form action maps in human motor cortex. Neuroimage. 2020 Mar;208:116463. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116463. Epub 2019 Dec 17. PubMed 31862526 ↗
  • Pitcher D, Ianni G, Ungerleider LG. A functional dissociation of face-, body- and scene-selective brain areas based on their response to moving and static stimuli. Sci Rep. 2019 Jun 3;9(1):8242. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-44663-9. PubMed 31160680 ↗
  • Bainbridge WA, Hall EH, Baker CI. Drawings of real-world scenes during free recall reveal detailed object and spatial information in memory. Nat Commun. 2019 Jan 2;10(1):5. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07830-6. PubMed 30602785 ↗
  • Zachariou V, Del Giacco AC, Ungerleider LG, Yue X. Bottom-up processing of curvilinear visual features is sufficient for animate/inanimate object categorization. J Vis. 2018 Nov 1;18(12):3. doi: 10.1167/18.12.3. PubMed 30458511 ↗
  • Zhang X, Mlynaryk N, Ahmed S, Japee S, Ungerleider LG. The role of inferior frontal junction in controlling the spatially global effect of feature-based attention in human visual areas. PLoS Biol. 2018 Jun 25;16(6):e2005399. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005399. eCollection 2018 Jun. PubMed 29939981 ↗
  • Huber L, Tse DHY, Wiggins CJ, Uludag K, Kashyap S, Jangraw DC, Bandettini PA, Poser BA, Ivanov D. Ultra-high resolution blood volume fMRI and BOLD fMRI in humans at 9.4 T: Capabilities and challenges. Neuroimage. 2018 Sep;178:769-779. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.06.025. Epub 2018 Jun 8. PubMed 29890330 ↗
  • Zachariou V, Safiullah ZN, Ungerleider LG. The Fusiform and Occipital Face Areas Can Process a Nonface Category Equivalently to Faces. J Cogn Neurosci. 2018 Oct;30(10):1499-1516. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01288. Epub 2018 Jun 7. PubMed 29877768 ↗
  • Bankson BB, Hebart MN, Groen IIA, Baker CI. The temporal evolution of conceptual object representations revealed through models of behavior, semantics and deep neural networks. Neuroimage. 2018 Sep;178:172-182. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.05.037. Epub 2018 May 17. PubMed 29777825 ↗
  • Groen II, Greene MR, Baldassano C, Fei-Fei L, Beck DM, Baker CI. Distinct contributions of functional and deep neural network features to representational similarity of scenes in human brain and behavior. Elife. 2018 Mar 7;7:e32962. doi: 10.7554/eLife.32962. PubMed 29513219 ↗
  • Thomas C, Sadeghi N, Nayak A, Trefler A, Sarlls J, Baker CI, Pierpaoli C. Impact of time-of-day on diffusivity measures of brain tissue derived from diffusion tensor imaging. Neuroimage. 2018 Jun;173:25-34. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.02.026. Epub 2018 Feb 16. PubMed 29458189 ↗
  • Hebart MN, Bankson BB, Harel A, Baker CI, Cichy RM. The representational dynamics of task and object processing in humans. Elife. 2018 Jan 31;7:e32816. doi: 10.7554/eLife.32816. PubMed 29384473 ↗
  • Torrisi S, Gorka AX, Gonzalez-Castillo J, O'Connell K, Balderston N, Grillon C, Ernst M. Extended amygdala connectivity changes during sustained shock anticipation. Transl Psychiatry. 2018 Jan 31;8(1):33. doi: 10.1038/s41398-017-0074-6. PubMed 29382815 ↗
  • Zhang X, Mlynaryk N, Japee S, Ungerleider LG. Attentional selection of multiple objects in the human visual system. Neuroimage. 2017 Dec;163:231-243. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.050. Epub 2017 Sep 23. PubMed 28951352 ↗
  • Mellem MS, Wohltjen S, Gotts SJ, Ghuman AS, Martin A. Intrinsic frequency biases and profiles across human cortex. J Neurophysiol. 2017 Nov 1;118(5):2853-2864. doi: 10.1152/jn.00061.2017. Epub 2017 Aug 23. PubMed 28835521 ↗
  • Gonzalez-Castillo J, Bandettini PA. Task-based dynamic functional connectivity: Recent findings and open questions. Neuroimage. 2018 Oct 15;180(Pt B):526-533. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.08.006. Epub 2017 Aug 3. PubMed 28780401 ↗
  • Stevens WD, Kravitz DJ, Peng CS, Tessler MH, Martin A. Privileged Functional Connectivity between the Visual Word Form Area and the Language System. J Neurosci. 2017 May 24;37(21):5288-5297. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0138-17.2017. Epub 2017 Apr 27. PubMed 28450544 ↗
  • Huber L, Ivanov D, Handwerker DA, Marrett S, Guidi M, Uludag K, Bandettini PA, Poser BA. Techniques for blood volume fMRI with VASO: From low-resolution mapping towards sub-millimeter layer-dependent applications. Neuroimage. 2018 Jan 1;164:131-143. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.11.039. Epub 2016 Nov 18. PubMed 27867088 ↗
  • Zachariou V, Nikas CV, Safiullah ZN, Gotts SJ, Ungerleider LG. Spatial Mechanisms within the Dorsal Visual Pathway Contribute to the Configural Processing of Faces. Cereb Cortex. 2017 Aug 1;27(8):4124-4138. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhw224. PubMed 27522076 ↗
  • Mellem MS, Jasmin KM, Peng C, Martin A. Sentence processing in anterior superior temporal cortex shows a social-emotional bias. Neuropsychologia. 2016 Aug;89:217-224. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.06.019. Epub 2016 Jun 18. PubMed 27329686 ↗
  • Zachariou V, Nikas CV, Safiullah ZN, Behrmann M, Klatzky R, Ungerleider LG. Common Dorsal Stream Substrates for the Mapping of Surface Texture to Object Parts and Visual Spatial Processing. J Cogn Neurosci. 2015 Dec;27(12):2442-61. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00871. Epub 2015 Sep 11. PubMed 26359538 ↗
  • Silson EH, Chan AW, Reynolds RC, Kravitz DJ, Baker CI. A Retinotopic Basis for the Division of High-Level Scene Processing between Lateral and Ventral Human Occipitotemporal Cortex. J Neurosci. 2015 Aug 26;35(34):11921-35. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0137-15.2015. PubMed 26311774 ↗
  • Gonzalez-Castillo J, Hoy CW, Handwerker DA, Robinson ME, Buchanan LC, Saad ZS, Bandettini PA. Tracking ongoing cognition in individuals using brief, whole-brain functional connectivity patterns. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Jul 14;112(28):8762-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1501242112. Epub 2015 Jun 29. PubMed 26124112 ↗
  • Wu P, Bandettini PA, Harper RM, Handwerker DA. Effects of thoracic pressure changes on MRI signals in the brain. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2015 Jun;35(6):1024-32. doi: 10.1038/jcbfm.2015.20. Epub 2015 Feb 25. PubMed 25712496 ↗
  • Gotts SJ, Milleville SC, Martin A. Object identification leads to a conceptual broadening of object representations in lateral prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologia. 2015 Sep;76:62-78. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.041. Epub 2014 Nov 7. PubMed 25445775 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided — The protocol team has not had the opportunity to discuss whether or not IPD data will be shared.

09

Timeline

6 registry updates since Sep 25, 2026

Started Sep 1993 (actual).

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Nov 3, 1999
First posted
Nov 4, 1999
StartActual
Sep 17, 1993
Last update
Nov 9, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
Minor edits
Nothing that changes what the study is or who can join. Edited: verification date and description
6 updates, last Nov 9, 2026
Show all 6 updates
  1. Nov 9, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  2. Nov 5, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  3. Oct 16, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  4. Oct 8, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  5. Oct 2, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: description
  6. Sep 28, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: verification date

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT00001360
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Nov 4, 1999
Start date
Sep 17, 1993
Last update
Nov 9, 2026

Study contacts

NIMH LBC Volunteer
Contact
nimhlbcvolunteer@mail.nih.gov
(301) 827-5157
Christopher I Baker, Ph.D.
Contact
bakerchris@mail.nih.gov
(301) 435-6058
Christopher I Baker, Ph.D.
principal investigator · National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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