Neuroimaging clinical trials at UCSD
6 in progress, 3 open to eligible people
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative 4
open to eligible people ages 55-90
Since its launch in 2004, the overarching aim of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) Study has been to validate biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical trials. ADNI4 continues the previously funded ADNI1, ADNI-GO, ADNI2, and ADNI3 studies that have combined public/private collaborations between academia and industry to determine the relationships between the clinical, cognitive, imaging, genetic and biochemical biomarker characteristics of the entire spectrum of AD.
La Jolla, California and other locations
Cancer Therapy Effects on the Heart
open to eligible people ages 13-39
Anthracycline chemotherapies (e.g. doxorubicin, daunorubicin) are commonly given to treat pediatric cancer, and carry a risk of cardiotoxicity. Over the long term, children who receive these therapies have an increased risk of heart failure and early cardiovascular death. However, current strategies for identifying patients who are at risk prior to the development of significant changes in heart function are limited. This study will focus on imaging markers of cardiac injury and dysfunction with the goal of developing improved diagnostic tests and treatment strategies.
San Diego, California
Longitudinal Prospective Study of Neurocognition & Neuroimaging in Primary BT Patients
open to eligible people ages 18-99
In this proposal, the investigators introduce a novel, translational study to prospectively examine primary brain tumor patients undergoing fractionated radiation therapy to the brain. Quantitative neuroimaging, radiation dose information, and directed neurocognitive testing will be acquired through this study to improve understanding of cognitive changes associated with radiation dosage to non-targeted tissue, and will provide the basis for evidence-based cognitive- sparing brain radiotherapy.
San Diego, California
Developing an EEG Paradigm to Study Prediction Error in Anorexia Nervosa
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
Adolescent anorexia nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder associated with intense fear of weight gain, food refusal, and severe weight loss. AN is the third most common chronic illness among adolescent females with a mortality rate 12 times higher than expected for females 15-24 years old. Little is known about biomarkers in adolescent AN. Neuroimaging studies have repeatedly suggested altered reward processing in AN including in studies using the dopamine associated prediction error (PE) model. The brain PE response is elicited during unexpected receipt or omission of reward stimuli and thought to reflect the functionality of brain dopamine circuits. This is an important research direction as the dopamine system can be manipulated pharmacologically. In ill and recovered adult AN, unexpected or randomly applied sucrose taste stimuli evoked higher insular and striatal responses and unexpected omission or receipt of monetary or taste reward was associated with a similar response pattern in adolescent AN. PE was also inversely related to weight gain in treatment. Thus, PE brain response promises to be an important biological marker for adolescent AN with predictive value for treatment outcome. However, functional brain imaging is costly, prohibitive for instance for individuals with braces or other metal in their body and only available at certain centers. In order to study PE in AN in larger scale studies, a more practical approach and method need to be developed. In this application, we will use the exploratory/developmental R21 mechanism to develop a study protocol using electroencephalography (EEG) to study PE signals in adolescent AN. Recent studies in healthy individuals support that this is a valid approach. Our primary goal for this study is to test the feasibility of the use of EEG for prediction error and reversal learning studies in AN with the longer term goal of replacing fMRI that is costly and associated with frequent participant rule out. In Aim 1. we test the feasibility of adapting a computational taste PE reinforcement learning paradigm from fMRI to EEG in adolescents with AN and healthy controls. We expect that we will find internal consistency of taste PE brain response across fMRI and EEG in adolescents with AN as well as age-matched healthy controls, within each group. We further expect that we will find preliminary evidence that the EEG paradigm will be able to discriminate the AN group from the HC adolescents based on feedback related negativity and higher event-related potential amplitudes, which will correlate with fMRI PE brain response. In Aim 2., we test whether a monetary PE paradigm will show similar EEG brain response as taste PE in Aim 1. to establish the generalizability of EEG taste and non-taste paradigms. The development of an EEG based reward PE study paradigm will enable us in the future to conduct large-scale studies that will be less costly and independent from brain imaging centers that are only available to a small subset of adolescents with AN.
San Diego, California
Effects of Hypoxic Breathwork
Sorry, not yet accepting patients
This project will study changes that occur during a short period of intensive daily slow-paced breathing and breath hold practice (i.e., "breathwork"). On the first and last days of the week-long practice, investigators will conduct high-density EEG recordings during breathwork to evaluate spectral power, coherence, and causality dynamics of the brain when it is naïve to breathwork and after adaptation to a breathwork practice. Breath, blood, urine, saliva, stool samples, biometric data, and sleep EEG will be collected before the start of daily breathwork practice and again after 1 week of breathwork practice to examine the effect of breathwork on full body biochemistry, molecular biology, and sleep. Investigators will also use questionnaires to assess the impact of breathwork on stress and sleep quality.
4-Repeat Tauopathy Neuroimaging Initiative - Cycle 2
Sorry, in progress, not accepting new patients
The goal of this study is to identify the most reliable methods of analysis for tracking CBD, PSP, and o/vPSP over time. The results from this study may be used in the future to calculate statistical power for clinical drug trials. The study will also provide information about the relative value of novel imaging techniques for diagnosis, as well as the value of imaging techniques versus testing of blood, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) 'biomarkers'.
San Diego, California and other locations
Our lead scientists for Neuroimaging research studies include Julie Onton Guido Frank, MD Hari Narayan, MD James Brewer.
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