Manipulating Social Percepts During fMR… | Clinical Trial

Key information

Conditions

Healthy Volunteers

Age range

18 year–35 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

About this study

The investigators have previously established stable individual differences in how people accumulate evidence for the presence and nature of a social interaction in visual displays, termed "social tuning curves". Taking individuals with deeply characterized neural and behavioral social tuning curves, this protocol will covertly manipulate percepts in two ways using real-time fMRI: 1) brain-state-triggered trials to bias participants toward a given percept based on their pre-stimulus brain state, and 2) implicit neurofeedback prior to and during stimulus exposure to teach participants to control their brain activity in social-perceptual circuits. These experiments will directly test causal relationships between activity at different levels of the cortical hierarchy and an individual's ultimate percept of a given social stimulus.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

willingness and availability to come for a total of 6 MRI scan sessions
good fMRI data quality in previous, non-clinical trial study, including low head motion, high vigilance during the task as measured via simultaneous eye tracking, consistent behavioral responses

Exclusion criteria

metallic objects in body contraindicated for the MRI scanner
history of severe psychiatric or neurological disease
currently on medication for a psychiatric condition
illicit drug use
claustrophobia
heavy nicotine or alcohol use
prior head injury
pregnancy

Treatment and study plan

Real-time fMRI: Brain-state- triggered trials

Other

During each fMRI session, we will monitor subjects' brain activity in real time and use univariate and/or multivariate activity patterns to trigger trial presentation. For each individual, we will select three regions: one key region early in the cortical hierarchy (e.g., MT), one key region late in the cortical hierarchy (e.g., anterior temporal), and one control region that does not show strong tuning to social information (e.g., primary auditory). These regions will be functionally defined for each individual using data from their characterization sessions. Subjects will report percepts behaviorally after each trial. For each region for each individual, we will then test the correlation between pre-stimulus activity and the likelihood of reporting certain percepts across trials.

Real-time fMRI: Covert neurofeedback

Other

Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback that uses real-time displays of brain activity in an attempt to teach subjects to self-regulate their brain function. Here we will use implicit neurofeedback, meaning that subjects will see a feedback signal, but will not be told what that feedback signal represents (i.e., which brain region) or what the expected effects of learning to control that brain region might be. This type of neurofeedback is less prone to suggestibility and other confounding effects. Each of the two scan sessions dedicated to this intervention will be split into four equal blocks in a 2x2 design with region (early or late) and direction of modulation (up or down). Subjects will see a continuous feedback signal representing the region and direction, and will be asked to try to modulate the signal using any strategy that occurs to them.

Primary outcomes

Likelihood of certain social percepts (behavioral)

Time frame: during fMRI session

Likelihood of participants to report perceiving certain types of interactions in social animations. Percepts are characterized according to if a social interaction was perceived, and if so, how it was perceived (on a valence axis from positive to neutral to negative).

Secondary outcomes

Control over brain activity (fMRI-based)

Time frame: during fMRI session

In Expt 3B (implicit neurofeedback), the degree of control obtained over the target brain region in each block will serve as a secondary outcome measure. Dynamics of brain activity in the region will be assessed over the course of the block and compared to a control block where participants were attempting to control a different region, and/or the same region in the opposite direction. The specific outcome measure will be the extent to which activity increases or decreases (i.e., slope over time) according to the instructions in that block, measured relative to the change in activity (slope) in a control block.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Trustees of Dartmouth College

Other

Collaborators

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Registry information

Official study title

Manipulating Social Percepts With Real-Time fMRI

Important dates

Study start: 2026
Primary completion: 2027
Study completion: 2027
First posted: Apr 14, 2026
Registry last updated: Apr 14, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.

Not Yet Recruiting