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Modulating Prospective Memory in Older Adults With Non-invasive Brain Stimulation

NCT04882527 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 106

Last updated 2023-12-12

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Prospective memory is the ability to remember to carry out intentions with a certain delay (e.g. remember to buy stamps when passing a postal office). Prospective memory tasks require a large degree of self-initiated retrieval and in the absence of a prompt to recall, people must 'remember to remember' by their own volition. Thus, prospective memory is a challenge - especially in old age with increasing health-related prospective memory demands.

Previous studies reported links between neural activity in specific brain regions and prospective memory performance. Yet, the mere occurrence of a change in brain activity in concomitance with performance of a behavioral task is not sufficient to confirm a causal relationship between the two phenomena. Therefore, this study aims to apply non-invasive brain stimulation to facilitate or inhibit activity in different brain regions presumed to be functionally associated with prospective memory. Additional to the prospective memory tasks, the investigators will implement control tasks (i.e., attention) to assess whether stimulation will specifically enhance prospective memory performance or whether other cognitive functions will be modulated additionally.

It is hypothesized that stimulation will lead to changes in prospective memory functioning. Further, the investigators expect that facilitation of attentional processes might be linked to prospective memory improvements.

Conditions

  • Healthy Aging

Interventions

DEVICE

Non-invasive brain stimulation

Stimulation will be applied once per subject with one mA for 20 minutes over either the left inferior frontal lobe, the right inferior frontal lobe or the right superior parietal lobe.

DEVICE

Sham stimulation

The electrode positions and the attachment procedures correspond to those of real tDCS but the electrical current will only be ramped up to 1 mA and switched off completely after 30 s of stimulation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Bern

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Stefan Klöppel, Prof. Dr. · University of Bern

  • Jessica Peter, PD Dr. · University of Bern

  • Matthias Kliegel, Prof. Dr. · University of Geneva

  • Nadine Schmidt, MSc. · University of Bern

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
DOUBLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
60 Years
Max Age
80 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-06-28
Primary Completion
2023-10-31
Completion
2023-10-31

Countries

  • Switzerland

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 NCT04882527 on ClinicalTrials.gov