NCT01385540

Exploration of Cortical Neural Network in Patients With Bothersome Tinnitus

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 7 (actual)
• Sponsor: Washington University School of Medicine · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This will be an experimental task-based functional MRI pilot study involving the neuroimaging assessment of patients with severely bothersome tinnitus, defined by a global bothersome scale. The investigators plan to enroll a total of 12 participants (6 severely bothered tinnitus and 6 age-matched non-tinnitus controls) over the course of six months to undergo task-based imaging. Subjects in the tinnitus group may have previously participated in the CTRWU study (HRPO: 07-0689) conducted by Dr. Jay Piccirillo at Washington University and have given permission to be contacted for consideration in future studies. The selected paradigm will allow us to advance knowledge about the role of the attention, control, and other cortical networks in the development and maintenance of bothersome tinnitus.

Detailed description

Task-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) The task-based fMRI protocol is based on work performed at Washington University by Dr. Gordon Shulman and published in The Journal of Neuroscience.(Shulman, Astafiev, Franke, Pope, Snyder, McAvoy, and Corbetta 2009) Individuals will be shown a target, which is randomly selected from 12 objects designated as targets, before each scan. The target for a scan will never appear as a non-target object in another scan. Per established protocol, individuals will fixate on a central cross prior to imaging. Individuals will press a MR-compatible button when they detect the target. Target objects only appear in the cued stream. Cues, a filled red square, are programmed to occur, on average, every 2.06, 4.12, or 6.18 seconds within a temporal window of ± 400 milliseconds centered on those values.

Conditions

• Tinnitus

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Task-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)	Individuals will be shown a target, which is randomly selected from 12 objects designated as targets, before each scan. The target for a scan will never appear as a non-target object in another scan. Per established protocol, individuals will fixate on a central cross prior to imaging. Individuals will press a MR-compatible button when they detect the target. Target objects only appear in the cued stream. Cues, a filled red square, are programmed to occur, on average, every 2.06, 4.12, or 6.18 seconds within a temporal window of ± 400 milliseconds centered on those values.

Timeline

• Start date: 2011-07-01
• Primary completion: 2011-08-01
• Completion: 2011-08-01
• First posted: 2011-06-30
• Last updated: 2012-03-02

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States