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Sensorimotor and Psychosocial Trajectories in Adolescents with Tic Disorder

Recruiting
Conditions
Tourette Syndrome
Tic Disorder
Registration Number
NCT06576726
Lead Sponsor
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Brief Summary

Individuals with tic disorders have lower quality of life, sensory and movement difficulties, and poorer mental, social, and physical health compared to the general population. Current clinical care for individuals with tic disorders is limited: no interventions are proven to prevent or stop the disorder exist, and most treatments focus solely on tics, though other symptoms often affect quality of life more than tics. To develop new treatments and improve care for people with tics, researchers need to better understand the different symptoms people experience and how the brain causes these symptoms.

Many individuals with tic disorders have sensory and movement symptoms other than tics. A common sensory symptom is increased sensitivity to common sensations, such as glare from sunlight, tags in shirt collars, and noises from passing cars. A common movement symptom is poor handwriting and/or poor coordination. In one study of adolescents with tic disorder, difficulty with hand coordination predicted tic severity 7.5 years later, suggesting that sensory and/or motor difficulties may be a risk factor for more severe tics later in life. Despite how common they are, much is unknown about sensory and motor difficulties experienced by people with tic disorders.

Additionally, most studies of people with tics enroll younger children. As a result, little is known about sensory, motor, and psychosocial development in adolescents with tics. Knowledge of sensory and motor difficulties in adolescents with tics is important to understand because, in other adolescent populations, such difficulties are associated with worse mental and social health and worse quality of life. Deepening insight into the sensory, motor, and psychosocial development of adolescents with tic disorders is crucial to identify causes and risk factors for poor health in this population.

The goals of this study are to measure sensory and motor symptoms and function in adolescents with tics and to compare them to adolescents without tics. The research team will enroll adolescents with tics and adolescents without tics to participate in the study. Adolescent participants will complete questionnaires, electroencephalogram (EEG) tasks, and other sensory and motor tasks at baseline (with 2 study visits occurring within 30 days of each other) and 2 years later (again, with 2 study visits, occurring within 30 days of each other). A parent or other adult who knows the adolescent well will also complete questionnaires as part of the study.

Detailed Description

The study consists of 4 visits over the course of 2 years. The first 2 visits will occur within 30 days of each other, and then, two years later, participants will be asked to attend two more study visits (again within 30 days of each other).

Study Visit 1 can occur in-person or remotely. If you and your adolescent prefer the remote visit, this will be conducted over Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or another commercial audiovisual platform. During Visit 1, adolescents will be interviewed by a trained rater to assess for tics, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The interview will take about 1 hour. Adolescents will then be asked to complete a series of online questionnaires, asking about sensory experiences, coordination, puberty, mental health, and social health. The questionnaires will take about 1.5 hours to complete. In total Visit 1 will take about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Study Visit 2 will occur in-person within 30 days of Visit 1. During Visit 2, adolescents will complete questionnaires about sensory experiences, stress, and other symptoms of tic disorders. Questionnaires will take about 1 hour to complete. Then, adolescents\' motor coordination, handwriting, and intelligence will be assessed using various tasks and scales. This will take about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Additionally, adolescents\' height, weight, and waste circumference will be measured. At the end of the visit, adolescents who are eligible will have an electroencephalogram (EEG) during which their brain activity will be measured while they experience different sensory stimuli (such as puffs of air, simple sounds) and perform different simple motor tasks (such as tapping). The EEG tasks will take about 1 hour and 30 minutes. In total, Visit 2 will take about 5 hours for adolescents eligible for EEG procedures; Visit 2 will take about 3 hours and 30 minutes for adolescents not eligible for EEG procedures. While the adolescent is being assessed, a parent or other adult caregiver will complete questionnaires about the adolescent and themselves; these questionnaires, which take a total of 2 hours to complete, ask about mental health, social health, and quality of life.

Study Visit 3 will occur 2 years after Study Visit 1. Visit 3 can occur in-person or remotely. Visit 3 procedures are identical to Visit 1 procedures.

Study Visit 4 will occur in-person within 30 days of Visit 3. Visit 4 procedures are identical to Visit 2 procedures.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
RECRUITING
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
351
Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Study Design
Not specified
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 60-item self-report questionnaire assessing sensory experiences

Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, 2nd edition (BOT-2)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, rater-administered scale assessing motor coordination

Vibrotactile battery, with BrainGauge (CM4)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

Device- and rater-administered battery assessing several features of vibrotactile threshold perception, including static threshold detection, dynamic threshold detection, amplitude discrimination without and with adaptation, sequential and simultaneous frequency discrimination

Contingent negative variation indicesfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

Participants will undergo a contingent negative variation paradigm, while monitored on electroencephalogram (EEG), during which puffs of air will be administered to the index finger, cueing the participant to respond

Adolescent Motor Competence Questionnaire (AMCQ)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 26-item self-report questionnaire assessing self-perceived coordination

Tactile gating indicesfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

Participants will undergo a tactile gating paradigm, while monitored on electroencephalogram (EEG), during which puffs of air will be administered to the index finger.

Sensory Perception Quotientfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

35-item self-report questionnaire assessing self-perceived basic sensory sensitivity

Sensory Gating Inventoryfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 36-item self-report questionnaire assessing sensory over-responsivity

Purdue pegboardfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, rater-administered task assessing manual dexterity and coordination

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Short Sensory Profile - 2from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 34-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing sensory experiences

Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

gold-standard semi-structured interview assessing tic severity

Premonitory Urge for Tics Scale (PUTS)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 10-item self-report questionnaire assessing premonitory urge severity

Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale for DSM-V (ASRS-V)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

6-item self-report questionnaire assessing ADHD severity

Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Child Version-Revised (OCI-CV-R)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 18-item self-report questionnaire assessing OCD symptom severity

PROMIS Pediatric SF GenPop v3.0 - Anxiety 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report scale assessing anxiety severity

PROMIS Pediatric SF GenPop v3.0 - Depressive Sx 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing depression severity

PROMIS Pediatric SF GenPop v3.0 - Peer Relationships 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing self-perceived peer relationship quality

PROMIS Pediatric SF v1.0 - Family Relationships 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing self-perceived family relationship quality

PROMIS Pediatric SF v1.0 - Sleep Disturbance 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing self-perceived sleep quality

PROMIS Pediatric SF v1.0 - Meaning and Purpose 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing meaning and purpose in life

PROMIS Pediatric SF v1.0 - Life Satisfaction 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item self-report questionnaire assessing degree of satisfaction with life

Lubben Social Network Scalefrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

12-item self-report scale assessing extent of individual's social network

UCLA Loneliness Scalefrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

20-item self-report scale assessing loneliness

Height, weight, waist measurementfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

Height, weight, waist measurement

Beery Visuomotor Integration, 6th editionfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, rater-administered measure assessing visuo-motor integration

Writing kinematic indicesfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

Using MovAlyzeR software program on a Wacom tablet, the participant will perform several writing exercises to quantify writing kinematic characteristics.

Adolescent Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

Per the scale developer's website: "The Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN) is an NIMH/RDoC-recommended instrument for efficiently and reliably assessing exposure to acute and chronic life stress over the life course. The measure is entirely online and systematically inquires about a diverse array of acute life events (e.g., deaths of relatives, job losses, negative health events) and chronic difficulties (e.g., ongoing health problems, work problems, relationship problems, financial problems, etc.) that have implications for human health and well-being. Stressors occurring in early life (e.g., childhood maltreatment or neglect, parental loss/separation, etc.) are also queried. Participants are asked to rate the severity, frequency, timing, and duration of each stressor they endorse...Based on this information, the system produces 455 variables that are used to assess an individual's cumulative exposure to stress."

Finger tapping indicesfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

Participants will perform a finger tapping task, while monitored on electroencephalogram (EEG)

Child Behavior Checklistfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 113-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing psychopathology in children and adolescents

Conners-4from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 117-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing symptoms of ADHD and commonly co-occurring diagnoses of ADHD in children and adolescents

Toronto Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (TOCS)from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 21-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing OCD symptom severity

Social Communication Questionnaire - Lifetimefrom basline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 40-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing lifetime history of communication difficulties/differences and other symptoms suggestive of autism spectrum disorder

BRIEF-2 Parent Formfrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 63-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing executive dysfunction

PedsQL Family Impact Module, Version 2.0from baseline to 2-year follow-up

validated, 36-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing impact of child's/adolescent's health on family

PROMIS Parent Proxy SF GenPop v3.0 - Anxiety 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing anxiety

PROMIS Parent Proxy SF GenPop v3.0 - Depressive Sx 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing depression

PROMIS Parent Proxy SF GenPop v3.0 - Peer Relationships 7afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

7-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing proxy-perceived peer relationship quality

PROMIS EC Parent-Report SF v1.0 - Social Relationships - Family Relationships 4afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

4-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing proxy-perceived family relationship quality

PROMIS EC Parent-Report SF v1.0 - Sleep Health - Disturbance 4afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

4-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing proxy-perceived sleep disturbances

PROMIS Parent Proxy SF v1.0 - Meaning and Purpose 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing proxy-perceived meaning and purpose in adolescent's life

PROMIS Parent Proxy SF v1.0 - Life Satisfaction 8afrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

8-item, proxy-report questionnaire assessing adolescent's satisfaction with life

Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnairefrom baseline to 2-year follow-up

15-item proxy-report questionnaire assessing motor coordination

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

🇺🇸

Nashvile, Tennessee, United States

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