Evaluation of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in Patients Who Speak Two Languages Fluently

Glioma Clinical Trial

Official title:

Graph Theoretical Analysis of Pre-operative fMRI Data in Bilingual Patients With Brain Tumors

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03496181
• Other study ID #: 18-121
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Start date: March 30, 2018
• Est. completion date: September 2024

Study information

• Verified date: December 2023
• Source: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive test used to detect changes in brain activity by taking picture of changes in blood flow. The imaging helps doctors better understand how the brain works. Task based fMRI (TB fMRI) prompts patients to perform different activities (e.g. word selection in a reading task), and is routinely performed on patients in preparation for a Neurological surgery (surgery that involves the nervous system, brain and/or spinal cord). The purpose is to locate areas of the brain that control speech and movement; these images will help make decisions about patient surgeries. However, there are however gaps in knowledge specific to the language areas of the brain, especially for non-English patients and bilingual patients (those who are fluent in more than one language). This study proposes to evaluate if resting state fMRI (RS fMRI) that does not require any tasks, along with a novel way to analyze these images using "graphy theory," may provide more information. Graph theory is a new mathematical method to analyze the fMRI data. The overall goal is to determine if graph theory analysis on RS fMRI may reduce differences in health care treatment and outcomes for non-English speaking and bilingual patients. We hope that the results of this study will allow doctors to perform pre-operative fMRI in patients who do not speak English.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 32
• Est. completion date: September 2024
• Est. primary completion date: September 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

All patients and volunteers will be recruited by listed consenting professionals. Volunteers do not need to be MSK employees.

• Patients/ healthy volunteers = 18 years old

• Patients/ healthy volunteers must be able to perform the language paradigms on cue while inside the scanner

• Patients/ healthy volunteers who are monolingual English speakers, early bilinguals (English and Spanish) or late bilinguals (English and Spanish)

• Patients must be newly diagnosed with a glioma (from prior histology) or must be suspected to have a glioma on imaging (to be confirmed by post-operative histology)

• Patient's location of the tumor must involve the expected location of Broca's area (left pars opercularis and/or pars triangularis). This determination will be made on the basis of a pre-operative MRI by a fellowship-trained Neuroradiologist

Early bilingual will be defined as acquiring proficiency in the second language before 10 years of age.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients/ volunteers who are unable to comply or complete MRI exams as per the Department of Radiology's standard guidelines (e.g.: claustrophobia, high levels of anxiety, pacemaker etc.)

• Patient/ volunteers who are unable to perform the language paradigms on cue while inside the scanner (due to weakness, deafness, inability to understand or follow instructions etc.)

• Volunteers with a history of neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders or cancer

• Female patients/ volunteers who are pregnant or nursing

• Patients/ volunteers from the vulnerable population, as defined by 45 CFR 46

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Glioma
• Glioma of Brain
• Glioma of Spinal Cord

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Multilingual Aphasia Examination
For patients only prior to MRI scans. The MAE contains eleven subtests in five categories which may be used to assess both languages in bilinguals and the participant's primary language in monolinguals: Oral Expression, Spelling, Oral Verbal Understanding, Reading, and Rating Scales. Subtests are scored for accuracy of individual items on a three-point scoring system (0, 1, 2). Contained within these domains are The Token Test, Aural Comprehension of Words and Phrases and Visual Naming which naturally parallel fMRI and direct cortical stimulation behavioral assays already in place for clinical use (phonemic fluency, auditory responsive naming and confrontation naming respectively). The MAE is expected to take under 50 minutes.

Diagnostic Test:
• Language paradigms + RS fMRI
10 monolingual patients: 2 language paradigms + RS fMRI = 7x3 = 21 minutes 10 early bilingual patients: 2 language paradigms+ RS fMRI = 7x3 = 21 minutes 10 late bilingual patients: 2 language paradigms+ RS fMRI = 7x3 = 21 minutes
• Language paradigms + RS fMRI + one anatomical sequence
10 monolingual English volunteers: 2 task language paradigms* + 1 Resting State fMRI + one anatomical sequence for a total of approximately 25 minutes. 10 late bilingual volunteers: 4 language paradigms (2 English + 2 Spanish) + 1 Resting State fMRI + one anatomical sequence for a total of approximately 39 minutes. 10 early bilingual volunteers: 4 language paradigms (2 English + 2 Spanish) + 1 Resting State fMRI + one anatomical sequence for a total of approximately 39 minutes.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Italy	IMT School of Advance Studies Lucca	Lucca	Lucca LU
United States	City College of New York	New York	New York
United States	Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	New York	New York

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Countries where clinical trial is conducted

United States,  Italy, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Comparison of RS fMRI and overall TB fMRI		Through study completion, an average of 1 day

External Links

•   Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center