NCT06492252

Speech Motor Learning and Retention (Aim 3)

Sensorimotor Basis of Speech Motor Learning and Retention

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 50 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Yale University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The overall goal of this research is to test a new model of speech motor learning, whose central hypothesis is that learning and retention are associated with plasticity not only in motor areas of the brain but in auditory and somatosensory regions as well. The strategy for the proposed research is to identify individual brain areas that contribute causally to retention by disrupting their activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Investigators will also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which will enable identification of circuit-level activity which predicts either learning or retention of new movements, and hence test the specific contributions of candidate sensory and motor zones. In other studies, investigators will record sensory and motor evoked potentials over the course of learning to determine the temporal order in which individual sensory and cortical motor regions contribute. The goal here is to identify brain areas in which learning-related plasticity occurs first and which among these areas predict subsequent learning.

Detailed description

The focus of this registration is Aim 3. Excitability will be assessed. In Aim 3, resting-state fMRI will be interleaved with speech motor adaptation, again using Harvard Sentences. Additional scans and retention tests will be conducted 24 hours later, to assess motor memory consolidation. The Speech Motor Learning and Retention Master Protocol is NCT06467292.

Conditions

• Speech

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	fMRI	To assess functional connectivity patterns between regions that predict learning.
BEHAVIORAL	Adaptation	Auditory adaptation in speech
BEHAVIORAL	Adaptation	Auditory baseline in speech

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-02-01
• Primary completion: 2028-11-30
• Completion: 2029-05-31
• First posted: 2024-07-09
• Last updated: 2025-11-21

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States