Brain Imaging and Behavioural Changes Following Cued-movement Training of Finger Sequences in Healthy Older Adults

Summary

The goal of this study is to examine changes in the brain, behavior, and personal experience when music is used to guide learning of finger movement sequences (compared to visual stimuli alone) in healthy older adults. The main research questions this study aims to answer are:

1. Is auditory-based motor training associated with increased structural integrity of brain white matter tracts (connecting auditory-motor regions) compared to motor training with visual cues only?
2. Is auditory-based motor training (as compared to visual clues only) associated with increased brain cortical thickness, and changes in brain activation while performing a task in the MRI and while at rest, in auditory and sensorimotor regions?
3. Does auditory-based motor training lead to greater motor improvement on the trained task compared to a visually cued motor training?
4. Does auditory-based motor training lead to greater improvement on thinking, movement, and self-reported wellbeing measures, compared to visual cues alone?

In an 8-week home training, participants will be randomized into either the music-cued motor learning (Experimental Group) or visually cued only condition (Control Group), participants will complete the following measures before-and-after the training is administered at week 1 and in the end of the 8-week trial:

* MRI scans (structural and functional)
* Behavioral measures (motor, cognition)
* Questionnaires administered pre-and-post training (psychosocial functioning).
* Questionnaires administered once only (personality traits, musical background)
* In between measures, participants will follow an online computer-based training at home of 20 minutes per session, 3 times per week for 8 weeks, for a total of 24 sessions constituting 8 hours of training.

Conditions

• Aging
• Music
• Motor Activity
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Neuronal Plasticity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Music-cued audiovisual motor training

In addition to visual cues, music stimuli guide finger sequence movement both rhythmically (temporal component) and sonically (pitch-finger alignment).

BEHAVIORAL

Visually-cued motor training

Visual cues guide finger sequence movement by indicating which finger to move in alignment with the position and of the visual cue.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Universiteit Leiden

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Hanneke E Hulst, PhD · Universiteit Leiden

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-07-01

Primary Completion

2024-10-15

Completion

2024-10-15

Countries

• Netherlands

Study Locations