The Relationship Between Our Ability in Travelling in Time and in Estimating Time Duration and Their Interaction With Spatial Attention: a Neuropsychological Study.
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 已完成
- 入组人数
- 74
- 试验地点
- 1
- 主要终点
- Change in Mental Time Travel Ability on the Mental Time Travel (MTT) Task
研究概览
简要总结
Time is an important function that permeates our everyday activities but it has been so far significantly under-investigated in neurological patients.
For instance, it is known that right brain damaged (RBD) patients with spatial attentional deficit (neglect) are impaired in both the ability to estimate the duration of an event (Time Estimation), showing a time underestimation, and the ability of mentally moving in past and future time (Mental Time Travelling), showing a deficit in processing future events when they are projected in the past. After a leftward shift of spatial attention induced by prismatic adaptation (PA), both the underestimation and the ability to travel in time ameliorate. However, less is known about these abilities in left brain damaged (LBD) patients.
Aims of this study are to investigate:
i) the performance (in terms of accuracy and reaction times) of LBD and RBD patients on Mental Time Travelling; ii) the correlation between Mental Time Travelling and Time Estimation abilities; iii) the efficacy of a single session of PA inducing a leftward (L-PA) and a rightward (R-PA) attentional shift on Mental Time Travelling and Time Estimation abilities.
A group of control subjects will be involved for comparison among groups.
详细描述
Time processing involves different abilities - i.e. estimating the duration of an event (Time Estimation) and moving in past and future time (Mental Time Travelling) - and it is a fundamental ability in everyday life. However, in neuropsychology, time processing is routinely neglected in the assessment of cognitive deficits in brain-damaged patients. This is surprising since time is an important function that permeates our activities: it is involved in perceiving mismatches in lip reading (milliseconds), estimating how long it takes to be ready for work (minutes), and planning how long it will take a manuscript to be accepted (usually months). Thus, impairment in processing time has important consequences in daily life.
For instance, it is known that right brain damaged (RBD) patients with spatial attentional deficit (neglect) underestimate durations of milliseconds and show a deficit in processing future events when they are projected in the past.
Moreover, previous studies have demonstrated that a leftward shift of spatial attention induced by prismatic adaptation (PA) determines an amelioration of both, time underestimation and the deficit in mental travel in time.
The Mental Time Travelling, in particular, seems to involve different cognitive functions, among others, episodic memory and the ability to anticipate the future. Recent evidence suggests that these functions are mediated by neural circuits localized in the left hemisphere but no studies have investigated the ability of mentally moving in past and future time in left brain damaged (LBD) patients.
Aims of this study are to investigate:
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Observational
- 观察模型
- Case Control
- 时间视角
- Prospective
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 45 Years 至 85 Years（Adult, Older Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •patients with focal (right or left) brain-damage
排除标准
- •generalized cognitive impairment (score lower than 24 at the Mini Mental State Examination)
- •psychiatric disorders
- •additional neurological disorders
- •abusive use of alcohol or illicit drugs
结局指标
主要结局
Change in Mental Time Travel Ability on the Mental Time Travel (MTT) Task
时间窗: pre-PA and immediately post-PA
In the MTT task participants are listened to auditory stimuli consisting of brief descriptions of personal and non-personal events. They are required to project themselves in the past (10 years ago), present or future (10 years from now) and to verbally determine whether each event has already happened (relative past event) or is yet to happen (relative future event) with respect to the specific self-location in time (past, present and future). Error rates and reaction times will be recorded and analyzed. The improvement will be defined as changes in the Inverse Efficiency (IE) ability: reaction times/accuracy.
Change in Time Estimation Ability on the Time Estimation Task
时间窗: pre-PA and immediately post-PA
The Time Estimation task consists of a red square that is displayed for different durations (1400, 1700, 2000, 2300, 2600 ms) on the computer screen. Participants are instructed to verbally judge whether the duration of each stimulus is "short" or "long" with respect to previously acquired pair of reference durations (1400 and 2600 ms). A psychophysical response function will be created for each participant by calculating the proportion of "long" responses: the Point of Subjective Equality (PSE) is the duration at which a participant is equally likely to classify the stimuli as short or long. An increase of "long" response after treatment, as compared to baseline performance, induces a decreased PSE, reflecting a relative shift towards overestimation of temporal midpoint. Conversely, an increase of "short" responses after treatment, as compared to baseline performance, induces an increased PSE, reflecting a relative shift towards underestimation of temporal midpoint.
次要结局
- Assessment of Frontal Functions on the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB)(baseline)
- Assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect on the Bells Cancellation Test(baseline)
- Assessment of Verbal Estimation Ability on the Time and Weight Estimation Test (STEP)(baseline)
- Assessment of Verbal Estimation Ability on the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET)(baseline)
- Correlation between Time Processing Abilities(baseline)
- Assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect on the Apples Cancellation Test(baseline)
- Assessment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect on the Behavioral Inattention Test (BIT)(baseline)
- Assessment of Verbal Comprehension on the Token Test(baseline)
- Assessment of Memory on the Rey's 15 Words Auditory Learning Test(baseline)
- Assessment of Ideomotor Apraxia on the Movement Imitation Test(baseline)
- Assessment of General Cognitive Functioning on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE)(baseline)