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Study of the Cerebral Bases of Tool Use and Tool Evolution

NCT03555162 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 70

Last updated 2025-09-19

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Tool use is considered to be the hallmark of complex cognitive adaptations that humans have achieved trough evolution, that provides an adaptive advantage to the human species. Even if nonhuman species do use tools too, human tool use is much more complex and sophisticated. Besides, only humans can make their tools evolve by improving them. If Man has special abilities for tool use, it has to be grounded in a specific neuroanatomical substrate. Humans and nonhumans share a similar prehension system located within the superior parietal lobe and the intraparietal sulcus. However, there is a human specificity : the surpramarginal gyrus within the left inferior parietal lobe is unique to Man, and could play a central role in tool use and tool evolution.

This project aims to study the neural correlates of human tool use with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), to precise the cognitive mechanisms through which humans are able to use tools. We also wish to study what are the cognitive abilities that allow us to make our tools evolve by improving them, and the neural correlates associated.

Conditions

  • Healthy

Interventions

OTHER

fMRI

Imaging examination

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Hospices Civils de Lyon

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Yves ROSSETTI, MD · Hospices Civils de Lyon

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
65 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2018-11-14
Primary Completion
2019-06-19
Completion
2019-07-04

Countries

  • France

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03555162 on ClinicalTrials.gov