What is this study trying to find out about learning and memory?

This study is exploring how the brain learns and stores new structured information, focusing on the hippocampus and how sleep affects memory consolidation. Researchers want to understand how people form connections between experiences and how memories change over time. The University of Pennsylvania is leading this research to improve knowledge about human learning.

Who may be eligible for this learning and memory clinical trial?

Adults aged 18 to 35 with normal vision and hearing who speak English fluently may be eligible. Participants should not have major psychiatric or neurological disorders or use antidepressants or sedatives. Pregnant women and those with metal implants that prevent MRI are excluded. Please review eligibility criteria for more details.

Is there any cost to participate in this learning and memory clinical trial?

Study-related care, including MRI scans, sleep monitoring, and all trial visits, is provided at no cost. Personal travel expenses may vary and are not guaranteed to be covered. Participants can expect to attend multiple visits involving brain imaging and sleep assessments.

Actively Recruiting

Phase Not Applicable

Age: 18Years - 35Years

All Genders

Healthy Volunteers

ID05910762

Study on How Adults Learn and Remember New Information Over Time and Sleep Using Brain Imaging and Sleep Monitoring

Led by University of Pennsylvania · Updated on 2025-08-01

105

Participants Needed

Research Sites

N/A

Total Duration

AI-Summary

What this Trial Is About

Researchers are investigating how humans learn new structured information by studying the brains hippocampus and its role in quickly recognizing patterns and storing knowledge for future use. This research aims to clarify how people integrate information across experiences and how memories change over time, including the impact of sleep on memory consolidation. The study uses advanced brain imaging and sleep monitoring to explore competing theories about how memories are formed and stored.

CONDITIONS

Brief Title

Human Learning of New Structured Information Across Time and Sleep

How This Trial Compares With Other Options

This table compares participation in this trial with other options available for this condition. The information is drawn from published research and the trial’s study details and is provided for educational purposes only.

Factors	Learning and consolidation in associative inference	Learning and consolidation in category learning	Manipulating replay during sleep using real-time EEG
What is it?	Participants engage in an associative inference task to explore how connections between items are formed and consolidated across sessions.	Participants undertake a category learning task, aimed at understanding how groups of related information are learned and remembered.	Participants complete a category learning task, then sleep while real-time EEG is used to manipulate memory replay, followed by memory assessments.
Role in trial	Experimental arm testing how associative links are formed and reinforced over time.	Experimental arm examining mechanisms of grouping and consolidating related information.	Experimental arm manipulating neural replay during sleep to observe its effects on learning and recall.
Primary use	Investigates how the brain learns and links related experiences, and how these associations are consolidated over time.	Explores formation and stability of memory for grouped information, contributing to understanding memory structure.	Evaluates whether manipulating memory replay during sleep impacts consolidation and later recall of learned categories.
How is it given or performed?	Participants complete computerized tasks evaluating their ability to connect items across sessions. Brain activity is measured using fMRI.	Participants learn categories during computer-based sessions, with memory tested after learning. fMRI is used in select arms for neural measurement.	Participants complete category learning, then nap or sleep while EEG monitors brain activity and memory replay is manipulated. Memory is tested after sleep.
Evidence status	Ongoing investigation of associative inference learning in healthy young adults. Prior studies have shown the hippocampus is critical for integrating relationships and making inferences about linked information.	Active research into how memory systems consolidate category structures. Basic and computational models indicate neural networks play a key role in integrating and separating episodic and statistical learning.	Sleep replay manipulation is under study for its effect on memory consolidation. Meta-analyses and targeted memory reactivation experiments suggest sleep can enhance memory accuracy and category structure formation.
Important limitations	Results may not translate directly to real-world learning contexts outside laboratory settings. Limited by small sample size and restriction to healthy adults.	Findings are constrained by the experimental nature of tasks and specific age range. Neural measures may not capture all relevant real-life learning processes.	Manipulation of memory replay during sleep is technically demanding and results may vary between individuals. Protocol does not address longer-term effects or generalizability beyond young adults.

Disclaimer: This comparison is created with the help of artificial intelligence(AI) and may contain errors or missing information. It is not medical advice and does not mean one option is better or safer than another. Clinical trials are still being studied, and joining a trial is your choice. Please consult your healthcare professional before making any decisions.

Who Can Participate

Age: 18Years - 35Years

All Genders

Healthy Volunteers

Eligibility Criteria

You may qualify if you...

Between 18 and 35 years of age
Not a member of a vulnerable population
Normal or corrected-to-normal vision
Normal hearing
Able to speak English fluently
No prior history of major psychiatric or neurological disorders (for MRI parts)
Not currently taking any antidepressants or sedatives (for MRI parts)
No known neurological disorders (for EEG parts)

You will not qualify if you...

Presence of MR contraindications such as non-removable biomedical devices or metal in or on the body (for MRI parts)
Claustrophobia (for MRI parts)
Pregnancy (excluded from neuroimaging parts)

Your Study Journey

Screening

Duration - 2 to 4 weeks

Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial.

1 visit (in-person)

Outpatient Treatment

Duration - Single study session spanning 4 to 5 hours

Participants engage in behavioral learning tasks involving associative inference and category learning, with memory assessed behaviorally and neural representations assessed using fMRI or EEG depending on the study arm.

1 visit (in-person)

Outpatient Treatment

Duration - Single session with nap and memory testing

Participants sleep while EEG is recorded and memory is assessed before and after the nap; spoken names are played during sleep to encourage memory reactivation.

1 visit (in-person)

Outpatient Treatment

Duration - Second session spanning 1 to 2 hours about one week after initial session

Participants return approximately one week later for a second session to assess changes in neural representations and memory consolidation using fMRI and behavioral measures.

1 visit (in-person)

Research Team

Anna C Schapiro, PhD

Rishi Krishnamurthy, BA

How is the study designed?

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Masking

SINGLE

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Model

PARALLEL

Primary Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Number of Arms

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Published Research Related To This Trial

Increased neuronal signatures of targeted memory reactivation during slow-wave up states.

Maurice Göldi, Eva Anna Maria van Poppel, Björn Rasch...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30804371/

Generalization through the recurrent interaction of episodic memories: a model of the hippocampal system.

Dharshan Kumaran, James L McClelland

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22775499/

Pattern separation in the dentate gyrus and CA3 of the hippocampus.

Jill K Leutgeb, Stefan Leutgeb, May-Britt Moser...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17303747/

Imaging the human medial temporal lobe with high-resolution fMRI.

Valerie A Carr, Jesse Rissman, Anthony D Wagner

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20159444/

Adaptive Memory Distortions Are Predicted by Feature Representations in Parietal Cortex.

Yufei Zhao, Avi J H Chanales, Brice A Kuhl

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33619210/

Promoting memory consolidation during sleep: A meta-analysis of targeted memory reactivation.

Xiaoqing Hu, Larry Y Cheng, Man Hey Chiu...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32027149/

Is working memory inherently more "precise" than long-term memory? Extremely high fidelity visual long-term memories for frequently encountered objects.

Annalise E Miner, Mark W Schurgin, Timothy F Brady

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32324030/

Modeling hippocampal and neocortical contributions to recognition memory: a complementary-learning-systems approach.

Kenneth A Norman, Randall C O'Reilly

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14599236/

Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence.

Demis Hassabis, Dharshan Kumaran, Christopher Summerfield...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28728020/

Representational similarity analysis - connecting the branches of systems neuroscience.

Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, Marieke Mur, Peter Bandettini

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19104670/

Study on How Adults Learn and Remember New Information Over Time and Sleep Using Brain Imaging and Sleep Monitoring

On this page

Sponsors

AI-Summary

What this Trial Is About

Brief Title

How This Trial Compares With Other Options

Who Can Participate

Eligibility Criteria

Your Study Journey

Research Team

How is the study designed?

Similar Trials

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Home-Based Mobile App Program to Help Preschoolers Ages 3-4 ...

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is this study trying to find out about learning and memory?

Who may be eligible for this learning and memory clinical trial?

Is there any cost to participate in this learning and memory clinical trial?

What will I be asked to do in this learning and memory study?

How will researchers measure learning and memory during the study?

What happens after this learning and memory clinical trial ends?

Can I leave this learning and memory clinical trial if I change my mind?

Not the Right Trial for You?

Published Research Related To This Trial

Increased neuronal signatures of targeted memory reactivation during slow-wave up states.

Generalization through the recurrent interaction of episodic memories: a model of the hippocampal system.

Pattern separation in the dentate gyrus and CA3 of the hippocampus.

Imaging the human medial temporal lobe with high-resolution fMRI.

Adaptive Memory Distortions Are Predicted by Feature Representations in Parietal Cortex.

Promoting memory consolidation during sleep: A meta-analysis of targeted memory reactivation.

Is working memory inherently more "precise" than long-term memory? Extremely high fidelity visual long-term memories for frequently encountered objects.

Modeling hippocampal and neocortical contributions to recognition memory: a complementary-learning-systems approach.

Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence.

Representational similarity analysis - connecting the branches of systems neuroscience.

On this page

Sponsors

Sponsors

How This Trial Compares With Other Options

Who Can Participate

Eligibility Criteria

Your Study Journey

How is the study designed?

Similar Trials

Improving Sleep and Well-Being for People with Alzheimers Di...

Home-Based Mobile App Program to Help Preschoolers Ages 3-4 ...

Sleep Hygiene Program to Improve Sleep in Urban Latino Middl...

Frequently Asked Questions

What is this study trying to find out about learning and memory?

Who may be eligible for this learning and memory clinical trial?

Is there any cost to participate in this learning and memory clinical trial?

What will I be asked to do in this learning and memory study?

How will researchers measure learning and memory during the study?

What happens after this learning and memory clinical trial ends?

Can I leave this learning and memory clinical trial if I change my mind?

Published Research Related To This Trial

Increased neuronal signatures of targeted memory reactivation during slow-wave up states.

Generalization through the recurrent interaction of episodic memories: a model of the hippocampal system.

Pattern separation in the dentate gyrus and CA3 of the hippocampus.

Imaging the human medial temporal lobe with high-resolution fMRI.

Adaptive Memory Distortions Are Predicted by Feature Representations in Parietal Cortex.

Promoting memory consolidation during sleep: A meta-analysis of targeted memory reactivation.

Is working memory inherently more "precise" than long-term memory? Extremely high fidelity visual long-term memories for frequently encountered objects.

Modeling hippocampal and neocortical contributions to recognition memory: a complementary-learning-systems approach.

Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence.

Representational similarity analysis - connecting the branches of systems neuroscience.

Sponsors