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Home-based SSP on Individuals With PWS

NCT03871751 · Status: TERMINATED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 10

Last updated 2022-03-07

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The Polyvagal Theory focuses on how function and structure changed in the vertebrate autonomic nervous system during evolution. The theory is named for the vagus, a major cranial nerve that regulates bodily state. As a function of evolution, humans and other mammals have a "new" vagal pathway that links the regulation of bodily state to the control of the muscles of the face and head including the middle ear muscles. These pathways regulating body state, facial gesture, listening (i.e., middle ear muscles), and vocal communication collectively function as a Social Engagement System (SES). Because the Social Engagement System is an integrated system, interventions influencing one component of this system (e.g., middle ear muscles) may impact on the other components.

Individuals with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) exhibit many behaviors that are consistent with a compromised Social Engagement System. Atypical function of the Social Engagement System results in problems associated with state regulation (e.g., impulsivity, tantrums, and difficulty with change in routine), ingestion (e.g., difficulties in sucking at birth, hyperphagia), coordination of suck/swallow/breathe, intonation of vocalizations, auditory processing and hypersensitivity, and socialization. The investigatiors propose to confirm that several features of the behavioral phenotype of PWS may be explained within the context of a dysfunctional SES, which may be partially rehabilitated via an intervention designed as a 'neural exercise' of the SES (i.e., the Safe and Sound Protocol, "SSP").

Specific Aims:

Aim I: To demonstrate the effectiveness of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) on improvement of social and regulation behaviors in individuals with PWS.

Aim II: To evaluate a new methodology for collecting and evaluating vocal samples for analyses of prosody, one of the indices of the functioning of the SES.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Safe and Sound Protocol

The auditory intervention will consist of listening to computer-altered acoustic stimulation, designed to modulate the frequency band of vocal music passed to the participant. The frequency characteristics of the acoustic stimulation are selected to emphasize the relative importance of specific frequencies in conveying the information embedded in human speech. Modulation of the acoustic energy within the frequencies of human voice, similar to an exaggerated vocal prosody, are hypothesized to recruit and modulate the neural regulation of the middle ear muscles and to functionally reduce sound hypersensitivities and improve auditory processing.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Integrated Listening Systems

    collaborator UNKNOWN

  • Indiana University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Jacek Kolacz, PhD · Indiana University/Kinsey Institute

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
3 Years
Max Age
17 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-04-08
Primary Completion
2019-12-16
Completion
2019-12-16

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

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 NCT03871751 on ClinicalTrials.gov