Mild Cognitive Impairment
Conditions
Keywords
Reaching, Brain, Decisions
Brief summary
The investigators aim to understand the interplay and neural structures involved with decision--making and movement for participants with mild cognitive impairment. Rapidly deciding and acting becomes bottlenecked with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's, leading to detrimental outcomes such as falling and car crashes. The investigators work will have a tangible impact by discovering sensitive biomarkers to detect disease onset and pave the way for informed and effective neurorehabilitation.
Detailed description
Mild cognitive impairment leads not only to impaired decision making, but also movement deficits that predict the development of Alzheimer's disease. Recent behavioral work has suggested a common mechanism that throttles the speed of both decisions and reaching movements, which is supported by converging neural evidence that finds an interac-tion between decision making and movement (motor) circuits. Yet it remains unknown how the interplay between decision making and motor neural circuits becomes impaired and impedes rapid responses for those with mild cognitive impairment. Here the investigators test the central hypothesis that there is an impaired interaction between decision making and motor neural circuits with mild cognitive impairment. First, the investigators will use human reaching experiments to establish that mild cognitive impairment disrupts the interplay of decision making and motor control. Second, the investigators will use Magnetic resonance elastography to elucidate whether brain stiffness in decision making and motor brain regions are related to altered movement behavior. The expected outcome is a mechanistic understanding of how impaired decision making and motor neural circuits impact movement for those with mild cognitive impairment.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALReaching Movements
participants will perform a perceptual decision making task while moving their hand.
Sponsors
University of Delaware
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
45 Years to 90 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. age 45 - 90 years 2. Perfect or corrected vision 3. Ability to reach 4. Neurotypical Age-Matched control participants - No history of neurological disorders or injury. 5. Mild Cognitive Impairment participants - clinical diagnosis of amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
Exclusion criteria
1. Any injury or condition that impacts reaching 2. Traumatic brain injury, such as concussion, in the last 6 months. 3. Neurotypical Age-Matched control participants: Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS-m) score \< 34 4. Mild Cognitive Impairment participants: Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS-m) score \> 34 5. Mild Cognitive Impairment participants: Mini-Mental State Examination Second Edition (MMSE-2) score \< 21.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Reaching Movements | through study completion, an average of 1 year | Hand position will be recorded throughout each trial during the behavioral task |
| Change in brain mechanical properties | through study completion, an average of 1 year | Investigators are assessing change in brain structure through mechanical properties |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Decision Time | through study completion, an average of 1 year | Decision time will be calculated on each trial during the behavioral task |
Countries
United States
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORJosh Cashaback
University of Delaware
Outcome results
None listed