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Hippocampal and Frontoparietal Development and Inference

Hippocampal and Frontoparietal Mechanisms of Knowledge Acquisition and Inference

Who can join

Ages 13 to 25 · All sexes · Healthy volunteers welcome

Inclusion Criteria:

* Right-handed
* Have normal or corrected to normal vision
* Have normal hearing
* Do not have contraindications for MRI
* Have no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders at initial intake
* Are of normal intelligence
* Native or fluent English speaker

Exclusion Criteria:

* A major medical illness or a neurological disorder, or neurological abnormality including significant head trauma (loss of consciousness \> 5 min).
* Meeting criteria for any psychiatric disorder or any prior psychiatric hospitalizations
* Intelligence scores more than 1 standard deviation below the mean on the WASI-II
* History of special education placement
* Non-native English speaker
* Prior use of psychotropic medication, except antidepressants, for longer than 1 month
* History of moderate to severe cannabis use disorder, via self-report
* MRI exclusions: Claustrophobia; tattoos above the shoulders; permanent eyeliner; permanent retainer or spacer; artificial eyebrows; cardiac pacemaker; metal fragments in eye, skin, or body, including shrapnel; heart valve replacement; brain clips; venous umbrella; being a sheet-metal worker or welder; lifetime history of aneurysm surgery; intracranial bypass, renal, or aortic clips; prosthetic devices such as middle ear, eye, joint, or penile implants; joint replacements; non-removable hearing aid, neurostimulator, or insulin pump; shunts/stents; metal mesh/coil implants; metal plate/pin/screws/wires; or any other metal implants; or suspected pregnancy.

About the study

The goal of this clinical trial is to test if an intervention used to manipulate memory and inference can improve our understanding of how brain development supports these abilities in healthy adolescent and adult volunteers. The main questions it aims to answer are: (1) Do hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex shift from forming simple memories for singular experiences to more complex memories that link numerous experiences together?; (2) Does an improved ability to retrieve prior memories in parietal cortex during new learning have consequences for how those memories are organized at different ages?; and (3) Does the emerging memory control supported by ventromedial prefrontal cortex development facilitate the formation of optimally-organized memory representations? Adolescent participants (13-18 years) will perform two experimental tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning at three timepoints (T1-T3), spaced 1.5 years apart. Researchers will compare behavioral and neuroimaging data to a separate group of adults (19-25 years) who will perform the task at a single timepoint (T1). The tasks and comparison groups will allow us to isolate the neural processes that support memory and inference behavior, and how these processes change with age.

What is being tested

• Associative Inference (behavioral)
• Probabilistic Inference (behavioral)

Sponsor: University of Texas at Austin · Participants: 142 · Started: Feb 20, 2025

Contact the study team

• Alison R Preston, PhD · Phone: 512-475-7255
• Nicole L Varga, Ph.D. · Phone: 856-304-6771

Official record on ClinicalTrials.gov — NCT07199907

Locations in the U.S.

From ClinicalTrials.gov, data retrieved Sep 30, 2026. Each study sets its own eligibility; the study team decides who can join.