An interventional study of Baseline and Motor procedural memory task in Epilepsy, sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital. Enrolling by invitation at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 12 Years to 65 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-11-17.
Sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
This study will investigate the role of coordinated brain rhythms during sleep in memory consolidation and determine whether playing precisely timed brief bursts of noise can enhance these rhythms and improve memory in epilepsy inpatients with implanted hippocampal electrodes.
The investigators will test the hypotheses that coordinated brain rhythms during nonrapid eye movement sleep are associated with memory consolidation and can be enhanced with auditory stimulation (playing precisely timed brief bursts of quiet noise) to improve memory. The investigators will measure differences in sleep and memory performance in epilepsy inpatients with implanted hippocampal electrodes and continuous full scalp EEG monitoring under three overnight sleep conditions: a baseline night; a memory night during which sleep-dependent memory consolidation is assessed with the finger tapping motor sequence task (MST) with training prior to sleep and testing the next morning; and a stimulation night during which participants train on the MST, have precisely timed auditory stimulation during the sleep that follows, and are tested on the MST in the morning.
1,805 studies on the registry are indexed under Epilepsy; 417 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 24 is below the median of 50 across 1,206 interventional studies indexed under Epilepsy.
Browse Epilepsy studies →Massachusetts General Hospital is the lead sponsor of 2,536 studies on the registry; 446 are open to participants now.
Of its 214 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 161 (75%) have results posted.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Epilepsy inpatients with implanted hippocampal electrodes and continuous scalp EEG monitoring
Other: Baseline · Other: Motor procedural memory task · Other: Motor procedural memory task plus auditory stimulation
Hippocampal and scalp EEG monitoring during overnight sleep
Training on the finger tapping MST prior to monitored overnight sleep with MST testing the following morning
Training on the finger tapping MST prior to monitored overnight sleep that includes auditory stimulation, with MST testing the following morning
Changes in slow oscillation-spindle-hippocampal ripple coupling
Changes in the coupling of slow oscillations with spindles and hippocampal ripples during non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep as measured by scalp and intracranial EEG between baseline, memory, and auditory stimulation nights.
Time frame: Three nights of sleep within three weeks
Changes in sleep-dependent consolidation of motor procedural memory
Changes in sleep-dependent improvement of motor procedural memory performance on the finger tapping motor sequence task (MST) between baseline, memory, and auditory stimulation nights. Different sequences are employed for the memory and auditory stimulation nights in a counter-balanced order.
Time frame: Three nights of sleep within three weeks
Changes in slow oscillations
Changes in slow oscillations during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep as measured by EEG between the baseline, memory, and auditory stimulation nights
Time frame: Three nights of sleep within three weeks
Changes in sleep spindles
Changes in sleep spindles during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep as measured by EEG between baseline, memory, and auditory stimulation nights
Time frame: Three nights of sleep within three weeks
Changes in hippocampal ripples
Changes in hippocampal ripples during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep as measured by intracranial EEG between baseline, memory, and auditory stimulation nights
Time frame: Three nights of sleep within three weeks
Plan to share: Yes — The PI will disseminate results through presentations at public lectures, scientific institutions and meetings, and/or publications in major journals. The institution and the PI will adhere to the NIH Grants Policy on Sharing of Unique Research Resources including the Sharing of Biomedical Research Resources. Prevailing standards and guidelines in documenting and depositing data sets will be followed. Specifically, quality-controlled data used in publications will be deidentified and made available to requesting scientists, starting one year following the completion of the project. Workflows will be documented and will allow any external groups to reproduce results from the raw data. The PI will be responsible for overseeing the sharing the data. Raw and summary data will be submitted to the appropriate NIMH Data Archive annually, including The National Database for Clinical Trials Related to Mental Illness (NDCT).
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Massachusetts General Hospital