CClinicalTrials.gg
Status unknownNCT03693729FOKhintUpdated Jul 10, 2020

Effects of Brain-stimulation on Metamemory Monitoring and Control

An interventional study of HD-tDCS in Healthy, sponsored by Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Status unknown at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 35 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2020-07-10.

Sponsored by Brooklyn College of the City University of New York · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science

The sponsor has not verified this record recently (last verified Jul 2020), so the status shown — last known as Active, not recruiting — may be out of date.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
216
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 35 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

When people learn and remember information, it is often accompanied by a feeling of subjective confidence about whether or not information has been learned and accurately remembered. These subjective feelings of confidence are often related to actual memory performance, but are sometimes incorrect. The investigators have previously shown that applying high definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex leads to more accurate feelings of subjective confidence, at least when subjects are asked for their confidence about future memory performance. Accurate confidence judgments are useful in that they may later subsequent behavior, and inaccurate ones may be costly. For example, a student who erroneously believes that studied material was learned may stop studying and not do well on a test. Individuals who have a feeling-of-knowing about the answer to a general knowledge question will continue to search their memory, whereas individuals who do not have a feeling-of-knowing will stop searching their memory. Individuals who are confident they know the answer to a question are more likely to answer it. In this study, the experimenters are testing the effects of brain stimulation on subjective awareness of memory (termed metamemory monitoring) and how people use those subjective judgments (termed metamemory control). The approach taken is to have participants visit the laboratory on 3 visits and receive brain stimulation while completing memory and metamemory tasks.

02

Conditions studied

  • Healthy

Keywords

  • memory
  • metacognition
  • metamemory
  • transcranial direct current stimulation
03

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 35 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

  • Healthy, right-handed adults ages 18-35. English spoken since age 5. Normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Participants will be excluded if they have chronic skin disease or a medical skin condition, or an unhealed open wound on the scalp, face, neck, or forehead near the electrode location.
  • Participants will be excluded if they self-report significant medical, neurological, or psychiatric illness and/or a history of substance abuse
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Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Crossover assignment
Masking
Single (Participant)
Enrollment
216 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Active DLPFC during task

    HD-tDCS will be applied over the DLPFC at 2mA in a single session for up to 30 min during the memory and metamemory task

    Device: HD-tDCS

  • Active comparator
    Active DLPFC after task

    HD-tDCS will be applied over the DLPFC at 2mA in a single session for up to 30 min after the memory and metamemory task and during a filler task.

    Device: HD-tDCS

  • Sham comparator
    Sham DLPFC during task

    Sham HD-tDCS will be applied over the DLPFC at 2mA in a single session for up to 30 min during the memory and metamemory task

    Device: HD-tDCS

Interventions

  • DeviceHD-tDCS

    Participants will complete a metamemory and memory task

    Also known as: Behavioral

05

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Memory Control Advantage Index

    This indexes the memory advantage for choosing which general knowledge question one receives a hint about the answer to versus having the experimenter choose which general knowledge question one receives a hint about the answer. The investigators will subtract the proportion of correctly recognized general knowledge answers for experimenter-chosen questions from the proportion correctly recognized for participant-chosen questions

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 3 weeks

Secondary outcomes

  1. semantic recognition as assessed by a general knowledge task

    Differences in recognition are compared between each condition (each active HD-tDCS and sham).

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 3 weeks

  2. semantic recall as assessed by a general knowledge task

    Differences in recall are compared between each condition (each active HD-tDCS and sham).

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 3 weeks

  3. Feeling-of-knowing ratings and their accuracy

    Feeling of knowing ratings are given on a scale. To assess the accuracy of these ratings, the subjective ratings are compared to objective accuracy, using signal detection based measures. Differences in feeling-of-knowing ratings and their accuracy are compared between each condition (each active HD-tDCS and sham).

    Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 3 weeks

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Study locations

1 site
  • Brooklyn College
    Brooklyn, New York 11210, United States
07

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

08

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03693729
Lead sponsor
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
Collaborators
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Responsible party
Elizabeth Chua (Associate Professor, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York) — Principal investigator
First posted
Oct 3, 2018
Start date
Sep 3, 2018
Primary completion
Jun 30, 2022 (estimated)
Completion
Jun 30, 2022 (estimated)
Last update
Jul 10, 2020

Oversight

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

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