This project will use fMRI to examine changes in the brain related to behavioral therapy outcomes in persons with aphasia. We aim to recruit twenty persons with aphasia. Each participant will receive 4 MRI scans. Between scan 1 and scan 2, no therapy will be provided (10 week break). Between scan 2 and scan 3, ten weeks of word finding therapy will be provided. Between scan 3 and scan 4, no therapy will be provided (10 week break). The therapy used is abstract word retrieval training. The results of this project will help inform rehabilitation practices in aphasia.

There will be 4 fMRI scans. After the first and third fMRI scans, there will be an assessment. After the second fMRI scan, there will be 10 weeks of treatment.

$460

The CALM Project is looking to learn how different birthing classes prepare child-bearers for parenthood. Participants attend a free birthing class between their 20th and 37th weeks of pregnancy with their partners and fill out three questionnaires during pregnancy and postpartum. Three months after their baby is born, they are video-recorded interacting with their baby in their home and have their brain scanned using MRI. We aim to understand how different childbirth classes support mothers' well-being and bonding with their babies.

Women are asked to 1.complete 3 self-report questionnaires online during pregnancy and after their baby is born (45 minutes each)2.attend a childbirth preparation class (from a few hours to a 9-week class)3.participate in 2 in-person sessions (1.5 hours each): a videorecording with their baby in the home and a brain scan using MRI at Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

$160 + free birthing class

The HEALEY ALS Platform Trial is a perpetual multi-center, multi-regimen clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of investigational products for the treatment of ALS. The trial is designed as a perpetual platform trial. This means that there is a single Master Protocol dictating the conduct of the trial. The Master Protocol describes the overall framework of the platform trial, including the target population, inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomization scheme, study endpoints, schedule of assessments, trial design, the mechanism for adding and removing interventions, and the statistical methodology and recommended statistical methods for evaluating interventions.

The HEALEY ALS Platform Trial is a research trial that tests the safety and effectiveness of multiple treatments in ALS. A regimen is a specific course of treatment, each with a different study drug.The following things will happen in this research study: Blood and urine sample collection; Completion of questionnaires; Physical and neurological exams; Vital signs, current and historical review of medical information about general health and medication use review; Muscle strength testing; Measurement of the electrical activity of the heart with an electrocardiogram (ECG); and Measurement of respiratory (breathing) function.Participants will also take either the study drug, or placebo, according to the study schedule

The purpose of this study is to determine whether nicotine can improve symptoms of memory loss in people experiencing mild memory problems (referred to in this study as “mild cognitive impairment” or MCI). Recent studies have suggested that one of the causes of memory disorders may be a reduction in a particular chemical substance in the brain. This chemical substance, acetylcholine, is thought to act on certain brain cells in a specific way that helps us to remember and use memories as well as affect our attention. In people with MCI (and Alzheimer’s disease), the level of acetylcholine may be changed, and this may impair brain functioning. Preliminary studies have suggested that short-term administration of nicotine appears to improve memory in patients with mild memory loss and early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It has been known for many years that nicotine imitates many of the actions of acetylcholine. By administering nicotine over a longer period of time to participants with MCI, we hope to better understand whether nicotine may act to improve memory loss symptoms over the longer term and whether it may help to delay the progression of memory loss symptoms. The amount of nicotine in each patch used in this study is the same as patches that are FDA approved for use in people who are trying to quit smoking.

Subjects will be asked to come to the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center for a screening visit, which will determine eligibility. This visit includes blood work, a urine sample, an ECG, a physical and neurological exam, memory/cognitive tasks, and vital signs. Certain portions can be done remotely via phone. If eligible, subjects will be randomized to wear a nicotine patch or placebo and will complete 11 more visits about once every three months over two years. Some visits are longer than others and are a combination of in-person activities and remote participation via phone. Subjects will be asked to report medication changes and adverse events at every visit.

$600

This research investigates how the human adult brain exploits patterns and regularities in the environment to learn.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the underlying biological causes of the loss of pleasure in individuals diagnosed with depression. This study will examine brain, behavioral, and inflammatory markers of depression. Participants will answer questions, give blood and saliva, undergo fMRI and perform computer tasks. The study is also recruiting healthy controls with no history of major mental illnesses.Participants will be compensated $130 in total. To limit time in-person, the first portion of the study will be conducted remotely (1.5hrs), followed by an in-person appointment (3hrs). Mandatory COVID-19 precautions will be taken to ensure safety for the in-person appointment.

There will be one virtual visit where participants will review consent, answer questions about their mental health, and complete online questionnaires. There will also be one in-person visit where blood will be drawn, vitals (blood pressure, height, weight, and pulse) will be taken, participants will undergo an fMRI scan and complete computer tasks, and saliva samples will be collected at 3 time points.

$130

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a device that has the potential to restore communication by direct translation of brain signals. The BCI used in this study, the P300 Speller, relies on the generation of a P300 evoked potential when a user is presented a rare and unpredictable target stimulus amidst a larger pool of non-target stimuli. This evoked potential is used to perform selections on the computer. Those with advanced ALS demonstrate decreased capacity for BCI control using the P300 speller. With this study, we aim to use a combination of eye tracking and sensory testing to quantify sensory and cognitive processes necessary for the generation of a P300 response. We will test the performance of a multisensory P300 spelling task, where brain potentials are evoked using a combination of visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. The goal is to demonstrate the perceptual benefits of multisensory integration and generate evidence for its use in this patient group.

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a device that has the potential to restore communication by direct translation of brain signals. The BCI used in this study, the P300 Speller, relies on the generation of a P300 evoked potential when a user is presented a rare and unpredictable target stimulus amidst a larger pool of non-target stimuli. This evoked potential is used to perform selections on the computer.With this study, we aim to use a combination of eye tracking and sensory testing to quantify sensory and cognitive processes necessary for the generation of a P300 response. We will test the performance of a multisensory P300 spelling task, where brain potentials are evoked using a combination of visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli.

$40

This study seeks to examine parenting skills in responses to child misbehavior. Parents complete rating scales about their child's symptoms and behaviors and also participate in computer tasks to measure brain wave activity through EEG. There is an optional section where parent and child will be video recorded while completing activities together. Following the testing sessions are 8 weeks of counseling sessions for parents to help better manage their child's attention and behavior symptoms.

Participants will complete C-DISC while caregiver will complete rating scales around ADHD, ODD, and CD symptoms during initial visit. On the second visit, participants will complete emotion regulation tasks while EEG data is collected. Caregivers will also complete a monetary task while connected to EEG equipment. Parents will use LifeData to report inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and oppositional behaviors over 14 days. Optional parent child interaction and 8-week parenting intervention are offered to participating families.

$50

This is a 48-week, two arm study that incorporates digital tools for assessing motor function in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and healthy controls.During the study, neck- and wrist-worn “activity sensors” (PAMSys, BioSensics, Newton, MA) will be worn by subjects while performing tasks of daily living. Subjects will also complete a motor, speech, and handwriting assessment during site visits. They will complete a digital home assessments of speech, handwriting, and pattern tracing tasks throughout the study, and report any falls which occur on the study tablet. We will explore whether sensor-based functional changes are sensitive to self-reported changes over the length of the study.

During the study, neck- and wrist-worn “activity sensors” (PAMSys, BioSensics, Newton, MA) will be worn by subjects while performing tasks of daily living. Subjects will also complete a motor, speech, and handwriting assessment during site visits. They will complete a digital home assessments of speech, handwriting, and pattern tracing tasks throughout the study, and report any falls which occur on the study tablet.Subjects will be required to visit the study site around the time of 5 consecutive standard ALS clinic appointments.The research study will last approximately 48 weeks.

$240

This research study investigates the neural processes underlying how people process, store, and remember visual or auditory information.

There will be two in person visits completing tasks on a computer and some verbal tasks.

$10.00/hour for behavioral tasks, $20.00/hour for fMRI scanner tasks.

The purpose of this study is (1) to understand how the brain processes sensory information and (2) how this is affected by factors like blindness or synesthesia.

Participants will complete simple online tasks, for example judging differences in auditory pitch; processing visual and auditory stimuli in congruent and incongruent pairings; rating the sound-symbolic properties of either real words, pseudowords, or both; or discriminating between two stimuli on the basis of their structural properties over a change in their surface properties, and vice versa.

Amount varies depending on the study

This is a zoom-based research study on how people with ALS can improve verbal communication. In this study, you will first be asked to complete a hearing test and a short demographic questionnaire. After that, you will do one of two tasks depending on the condition you are assigned to. In one of the tasks, you would listen to recorded speech and indicate what the person in the recording said. In the other condition, you would play an interactive game with another participant. In the second condition, you would be interacting via Zoom to complete a task together and your speech will be recorded.

Interact with a person with speech impairment on Zoom to complete tasks.

$10

Tongue movement in adults with motor speech disorder

The purpose of this study is to test the performance of a web-based system for automated review of MRI images across 21 sites in the Parkinson Study Group. Each site will perform imaging, clinical scales, diagnosis, and will upload the data to the web-based software tool. The clinical diagnosis will be blinded to the diagnostic algorithm and the imaging diagnosis will be compared to the movement disorders trained neurologist diagnosis.

Participants will attend two study visits that will include questionnaires, a physical exam and motor exams and an MRI (during one of the visits).

300

The purpose of this study is to test the good and bad effects of using hypofractionated radiation therapy. Hypofractionated radiation therapy could shrink or stabilize your cancer, but it could also cause side effects. The study doctors hope to learn if hypofractionated radiation therapy is safe and tolerable in patients with your type of cancer. You will receive radiation therapy for 4 weeks. You may also receive chemotherapy.

Participants will be required to receive radiation therapy for 4 weeks. Participants may also receive chemotherapy with cisplatin, carboplatin, or cetuximab.

The primary rationale for this study lies in addressing the identified gaps in knowledge within the field of interoception research. A comprehensive understanding of interoception and its role in emotion regulation, behavior, and appetite control is vital for the development of effective interventions and therapeutic approaches targeting various psychological and physiological conditions. By investigating the applicability and accuracy of a novel method for assessing interoception, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature on interoceptive awareness and measurement.

This study will involve a single-in person visit. During the visit to the lab, we will weigh and measure you, have you complete two tasks assessing your ability to feel your own heartbeat, and answer questionnaires. For one of these tasks, you will be asked to complete Jumping Jacks. Throughout the session you will also be asked to wear a heartbeat monitor.

$10

The purpose of this study is to define how eye movements contribute to eye-hand coordination. All procedures to be used in our study will be non-invasive. The task during the study will be performed with a robotic handle that participants will grasp with their right hand. They will interact with visual stimuli by moving the robotic handle. The robotic environment will attempt to simulate real-world mechanical interactions, such as those experienced during catching a ball. Our objective is to understand how the nervous system processes visual sensory information of moving objects through slow eye movements called smooth pursuit eye movements.

During this study, we will ask you to come to our laboratory located in 23 Recreation Building, Penn State University, on two days separated by a maximum of 48 hours. Both sessions will last approximately 90-120 minutes.We will ask you to perform an eye-hand coordination task using a robot. You will sit in a modified chair and grasp a handle that permits you to move your hand leftward, rightward, towards and away from your body. A display system will project visual targets into the same plane as your hands, which will allow you to interact virtually with the visual targets. These targets will move in the workspace. When the target comes in contact with your arm, the robot will apply a gentle force to mimic what you would typically experience when you catch a ball.

40

This study is being conducted to determine the efficacy, safety and tolerability of subcutaneous (applied under the skin) dosing of an experimental drug named ABC008 in subjects with inclusion body myositis (IBM).

Eligible subjects will be randomized into four different groups with one of two dose levels of the study drug or matching placebo. The study drug will be given by injection every eight weeks. At the safety follow-up visit, subjects will have the option to enroll in a long-term extension study.

$1137

In this project, participants will perform experiments where they will be asked to look at salient virtual targets and make reaching movements to those targets, while ignoring other visual stimuli presented to them.

During this study, we will ask you to come to our laboratory located in 23 Recreation Building, Penn State University, on a single day.We will ask you to perform an eye-hand coordination task using a robot. You will sit in a modified chair and grasp a handle that permits you to move your hand leftward, rightward, towards and away from your body. A display system will project visual targets into the same plane as your hands, which will allow you to interact virtually with the visual targets. These targets will be either bright or dark and you will be instructed to look at some of these targets (while ignoring others) and make reaching movements to some of these targets.

20

Most attempts to quit smoking end in relapse, or a return to regular smoking. One of the biggest threats to cessation is a lapse (i.e., any cigarette use during a quit attempt). Thus, characterizing why lapses occur is essential to understanding and preventing smoking relapse. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a promising method for characterizing the psychological processes that lead to smoking lapses because it provides a way to measures patterns of brain activity thought to reflect relevant mental processes as they change over time. However, methodological issues have hindered the ability to capitalize on this potential and prevented an understanding of how brain activity and corresponding psychological processes unfold in the critical moments that immediately precede a smoking lapse. The proposed project will address this knowledge gap using a novel fMRI paradigm adapted from a well-validated behavioral lapse task. The goals of the project are to characterize changes in brain activity that lead up to a lapse and to investigate how these changes are related to concurrent affect and subsequent cigarette use.

There will be two in-person visits, both will involve completion of computerized questionnaires and one will involve completing and MRI scan

175

This is an interview study that will examine how people with and without ADHD tell stories. Eligible participants will be asked to attend a virtual televisit where they will tell three stories according to prompts given by study staff. We are recruiting both men and women for this study so we can determine if gender affects storytelling ability.

There will be one virtual visit on Zoom lasting approximately one hour. Participants will complete eligibility questionnaires, then eligible participants will be asked to tell three stories based on prompts from an investigator and complete one additional questionnaire.

$15

This study looks at the relationship between motor control via. arm movement and visual stimuli. After participating in brief calibration protocol for the eye tracking system, participants will be moving a robotic handle to interact with visual stimuli during various tasks. Participants will spend approximately 2 hours in the lab.

There will be one approximately 2-hour visit. They will then be asked to complete 20-25 blocks of hand movements while looking at a moving virtual stimulus with a large visual background. Participants will receive regular breaks during the experiment.

$20

The concreteness effect is the finding that individuals are faster and more efficient at processing concrete words (e.g., "dog") than abstract words (e.g., "wisdom"). The study will investigate the presence and strength of the concreteness effect in neurologically intact older adults. This data will be used as a control comparison for a group of people with aphasia, a language disorder that commonly results from left hemisphere stroke.

Participants will be asked to complete language and cognition tests that measure attention, memory, problem solving, and language processing on the computer. Participants will be asked to complete two Zoom sessions, each lasting approximately 1.5 hours.

30

Sound symbolism is the idea that the sound of a word alone can convey its meaning. Aphasia is a language impairment, occurring most often as a result of a stroke. There is some evidence that sound-symbolic language is preserved in stroke patients. Studies in this protocol will investigate the extent to which this is so, and whether sound-symbolic language could be a rehabilitation strategy for aphasia.

We will ask you to listen to real words and non-words and make judgements about them. We may also ask you to complete some tests of language ability. The total time commitment may be up to four hours but will be split into two sessions.

Amount varies depending on the study

The purpose of this study is to understand the neural and behavioral mechanisms subserving social and non-social risky decision making.

There will be one in-person lab visit where you will play a decision-making game, while having an fMRI scan.

$31.25

The purpose of this study is to test how social decisions are affected by possible risk of infection. We aim to examine the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying how choices in a risky social decision-making situation can be influenced by viewing images of infection threat (e.g., person with runny nose) vs. images of neutral scenes or other threatening scenes.

Participants will come to the research site for a one-time visit. They will complete brief questionnaires, followed by playing a social decision-making game while undergoing fMRI scanning.

$35.42

The purpose of this study is to collect normative data related to orofacial (lip/tongue) somatosensation (touch sensation) in healthy adults across the adult lifespan. This data will be compared to a select clinical population, those with Parkinson's disease.

There will be one data collection session lasting approximately 90 minutes. Participants may be invited back for a second session approximately 4 weeks later to repeat the testing sessionDuring the sessions, participants will answer a series of questions about their eating and drinking preferences, they will be asked to provide a speech sample by repeating a series of syllables, words, and sentences, as well as providing a spontaneous speech sample.All participants will be asked to complete a series of sensory tests where small plastic objects are placed on their lip, tongue, and finger tip. Participants will be asked when they feel the pressure/texture and when they do not.

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a complication of liver cirrhosis (liver damage). It affects nearly half of people with cirrhosis. Because of the damage, the liver doesn’t work as well as it should, and some toxins stay in the body. HE occurs when too many toxins build up in the bloodstream and reach the brain. It can cause symptoms like confusion, personality changes, lack of energy, inappropriate behavior, sleep problems, loss of small hand movements and tremors in hands and arms.This study is looking to see if a study medicine, rifaximin, can safely delay or prevent HE. Adults who have been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, but who don’t have yet HE may be eligible to join.•Participants will be in the study will up to 80 weeks. They will attend up to 21 study visits, including 14 visits to the clinic and 7 telephone check-ins.•If participants are eligible and choose to participate, they will be randomly (like a flip of a coin) assigned to one of two treatment groups: the study medicine or placebo (which contains no active ingredients). This means participants have a 50/50 chance of receiving the study medicine.•Both study groups will take their assigned study medicine study medicine as a pill twice a day.•The study is double-blind, which means neither the participant nor the study team will know which treatment they are receiving.

There will be 14 in person visits. Safety assessments will be done at each visit including blood tests and urine tests. Participants will need to take study drug as directed.

$1050.00

The purpose of this study is to define how eye movements contribute to eye-hand coordination in individuals of the age group 18-50 (young adults) and 65-80 (older adults). Specifically, the aim of the study is to understand how slow eye movements affect arm and hand movements. All procedures to be used in our study will be non-invasive. The task during the study will be performed with a robotic handle that participants will grasp with their right hand. They will interact with visual stimuli by moving the robotic handle. The robotic environmentwill attempt to simulate real-world mechanical interactions, such as those experienced during catching a ball.

During this study, we will ask you to come to our laboratory located in 23 Recreation Building,Pennsylvania State University, on two days separated by a maximum of 48 hours. Both sessions will last approximately 90-120 minutes. During the first session, we will review the procedures with you and if you agree to participate, you will sign this form and then proceed to perform the study. You will perform about 20-25 blocks of hand movements. Each block will consist of 24-30 trials and each trial will last between 3-5 seconds.The second day will be identical to the first day but the order of trials within a block will be changed.

$10/hour

This study is designed to better understand how people complete complicated tasks, and the best ways in which to measure their performance. If you agree to the study, you will be asked to fill out questionnaires on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; take a short interview on the same; and complete brain teasers and computerized tests of attention and learning.

There are several steps to determining whether you are a good fit for the study. If you agree to be in the study, then we will send you a link to complete online questionnaires (~10 min) on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If you are a good fit, then we will schedule a laboratory visit in Moore Building at the University Park campus (maximum length of time = 3 hours). During that visit you will complete an interview and more questionnaires, brain teasers, and computerized tests of attention and learning. The visit will be video recorded for quality assurance.

$50