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The Impact of Self-processing on Mental Time Travel

NCT06823193 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 66

Last updated 2026-02-23

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward into the past or forward into the future to envision past and future events. This study examines the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT.

Conditions

  • Brain Injuries, Focal

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Mental Time Travel task

A psychophysical task (D'Angelo et al., 2023) will be adopted. In this task, a projection in time will be "induced" by faces of different ages. Face stimuli will be presented with a short sentence describing a particular life event, commonly occurring around 60. Participants will perform a two-alternative forced-choice task under two experimental conditions. In the "past projection" condition, they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person of the face shown could have experienced the indicated event 10 years earlier. In the "future projection," they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person depicted will experience the indicated event in 10 years.

BEHAVIORAL

Age Estimation control task

In this task participants will estimate the age of the faces adopted as stimuli.

BEHAVIORAL

Lifeline task

In this task participants will be instructed to associated each event with the age at which they believe it typically occurred.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive (Cesena)

    collaborator UNKNOWN

  • Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Giuliana Vezzadini, MD · Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

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

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2024-12-01
Primary Completion
2026-06-30
Completion
2026-09-30

Countries

  • Italy

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 NCT06823193 on ClinicalTrials.gov