Noradrenergic Activity and Attention

Older adults demonstrate increased distractibility by task-irrelevant information which contributes to general cognitive impairment. However, it is yet unclear how changes in noradrenergic activity during aging influences attentional control. In the current study, tonic noradrenergic activity will be increased or decreased to investigate its behavioral and neural effects on attentional control.

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Key information

Conditions

Aging

Age range

18 year–80 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

Primary location

USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

Los Angeles, California, 90089, United States

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

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

Inclusion criteria

Fluent in English
Aged between 18-35 or 50-80
Have normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing, and normal color vision
Have a mobile phone and email address

Exclusion criteria

Non-English speakers
Currently practicing any relaxation, meditation, or breathing technique for more than an hour per week
Have participated in studies measuring attentional capture in the past year
Experiencing symptoms of dementia

Treatment and study plan

Primary outcomes

Initial Eye-movements Toward Target and Distractor Shapes Measured by an Eye-tracker

Time frame: Calculated once at the end of the 1 day experiment

The oculomotor suppression effect is a lower likelihood that salient display items will be the target of the initial eye movement in a visual search task compared to nonsalient display items. This effect is calculated from the percentage of first saccades toward a non-target stimuli subtracted by the percentage of first saccades toward the distractor stimuli. Greater % of first saccades toward the target would demonstrate better goal-directed attentional control and greater % of first saccades toward the distractor would demonstrate increased distractibility. Thus, a greater oculomotor suppression effect would demonstrate an increased ability to inhibit salient information that is irrelevant to the task.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Southern California

Other

Registry information

Official study title

The Influence of Noradrenergic Activity on Attentional Control in Younger and Older Adults

Acronym: NAA

Important dates

Study start: 2021
Primary completion: 2023
Study completion: 2023
First posted: Nov 15, 2021
Registry last updated: Sep 19, 2024

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.

Completed