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Neurobiological Mechanisms of Aging and Stress on Prospective Navigation

Georgia Institute of Technology · with National Institute on Aging (NIA) · NCT03896529

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Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 65–80 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
85
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
September 24, 2019
Record last updated
September 23, 2026

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

Two hallmarks of both healthy aging and age-related disease are 1) memory and navigational deficits, particularly in orienting towards goal locations and planning how to navigate to them, and 2) increased susceptibility to stress and altered regulation of the stress response. However, there are marked individual differences in these age-related changes. The investigators' proposal will help characterize factors that contribute to this variability.

Participants will be pseudorandomly assigned to stress-manipulated or control groups. The investigators will give both groups a novel immersive navigation task, validated by the PI in healthy young adults. This paradigm gives participants the opportunity to either (a) flexibly draw on spatial memory in order to plan efficient routes to goal locations, or (b) fall back on inefficient, but cognitively less-demanding, stimulus-response associations (i.e., habits). Using neuroimaging and behavioral measures, the investigators' protocol will test whether experimentally-induced stress leads individuals to bring fewer details about future locations to mind when route planning, and whether such restricted prospective thought ultimately biases participants towards relatively inflexible, habitual actions.

Being studied: Anticipatory psychological stress

Conditions: Aging; Anxiety; Memory Impairment

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria

Inclusion Criteria

  • adults 65-80
  • U.S. citizens or permanent residents
  • who speak fluent English
  • willing to come to Georgia Tech to participate in group testing sessions.

Exclusion Criteria

  • Individuals will be carefully screened using IRB-approved procedures for safety contraindications to MRI and electrical shock stimulation
  • (e.g., metal or electrical implants, heart arrhythmia, or medication affecting the cardiovascular system [e.g. beta-blockers]).

The purpose of this study is to investigate mechanisms of normally functioning memory, and memory-related changes in healthy aging. Thus, any confounding factors that may influence cognition, other than age, will be exclusionary. Potential participants that endorse any of the following conditions will be excluded from the study:

  • Epilepsy
  • Dementia
  • Parkinson's disease
  • history of stroke or seizure
  • psychiatric disorders
  • untreated depression or emotional conditions
  • Attention Deficit Disorder
  • Multiple Sclerosis
  • uncontrolled hyper- or hypo-tension
  • untreated Diabetes
  • Sickle Cell Anemia
  • regularly use illegal or psychoactive drugs (e.g., cocaine, alcohol abuse, etc).
  • Additionally, individuals scoring \< 3 on WAIS-R forward span, \< 2 on WAIS-R backward span, and failing to name more than 2 vegetable names will be excluded from the study. These exclusions will insure that persons with mild cognitive impairment or typical indications of clinical dementia will be not participate in the research.

Recruiting US locations

  • Center for Advance Brain Imaging

    Atlanta, GA 30318

    Site contact: Vishwadeep Ahluwalia, Ph.D. · 404-385-8619 · vahluwalia7@gatech.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Thackery I Brown, Ph.D. · 404-894-1123 · thackery.brown@psych.gatech.edu
  • Scott Moffat, Ph.D. · 404-894-6772 · scott.moffat@psych.gatech.edu
All mental health studies in Georgia →
Neurobiological Mechanisms of Aging and Stress on Prospective… (NCT03896529) | Bored Studies