NCT01641432

Computerized Attention Training for Individuals With Acquired Brain Injury

Computerized Cognitive Treatment of Vigilance Deficits in Individuals With Acquired Brain Injury

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 27 (actual)
• Sponsor: Posit Science Corporation · Industry
• Sex: All
• Age: 21 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Problems with attention are a common and debilitating consequence of brain injury. Studies show that poor attention is the number one predictor of poor cognitive functioning one year post-injury. This is due to the fact that attention is a necessary component of more complex cognitive functions such as learning \& memory, multi-tasking and problem solving. In many cases, individuals may exhibit problems with spatial attention known as 'hemi-spatial neglect syndrome' or simply 'neglect'. Many studies now show that the processing machinery of the brain is plastic and remodeled throughout life by learning and experience, enabling the strengthening of cognitive skills or abilities. The investigators own research has shown that brief, daily computerized cognitive training that is sufficiently challenging, goal-directed and adaptive enables intact brain structures to restore balance in attention and compensate for disruptions in cognitive functioning.

Detailed description

Participants will first engage in an assessment process to determine current level of cognitive function. This process consists of paper-pencil surveys and computerized tests. Following the assessment process, participants will engage in Internet browser-delivered training sessions conducted on any internet-accessible computer. These trainings can be done up to 7 times a week (once a day) or at participant's convenience (the investigators recommend 4-5 times a week). Following the completion of training, participant's cognitive function will be re-assessed. Participation is voluntary and participants may withdraw from the study at any time.

Conditions

• Acquired Brain Injury
• Stroke
• Hemispatial Neglect

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Tonic and Phasic Attention Training	The Tonic and Phasic Alertness treatment task (TAPAT) consist of two consecutive rounds of a 12-minute continuous performance task in which continually varying, rich visual (e.g., scenes, objects, faces) or auditory stimuli (tones or complex sounds) are briefly displayed and participants are required to respond via a button press when they see a non-target item (90% of trials) or withhold button-press responding when the item is a pre-determined target item (10% of trials). Presentation of the target item is non-predictive and infrequent, disallowing the development of an executive strategy. Participants simply sustain attention to the task over a prolonged period of time (tonic attention), ignoring distractions, and inhibiting the pre-potent motor response when they see a target item (phasic attention). Following the 24 minutes of TAPAT treatment participants will undergo one additional computer-based cognitive exercise, Multiple Object Tracking (MOT), for an additional 12 minutes.
BEHAVIORAL	Active Comparator	Computer games chosen from a list of progressive visual/audiovisual games from the top-100 game list: sporcle.com. Training duration will be similar to that of experimental training.

Timeline

• Start date: 2011-07-01
• Primary completion: 2013-07-01
• First posted: 2012-07-16
• Last updated: 2014-07-22

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States