The goal of this proposed research is to collect pilot data to test the hypothesis that treatment with a novel form of closed-loop digital meditation (MediTrain) will lead to a greater magnitude of gains in cognitive abilities in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), compared to OA without cognitive impairment, and will lead to improvements in quantitative measures of sleep.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
90
Participants will engage with a digital meditation app for 30m/day for 6wks. MediTrain is a tablet-based, meditation-inspired, cognitive training game aimed at improving self-regulation of internal attention and distractions. It was developed in collaboration with meditation thought-leader Jack Kornfield, and Zynga, a world-class video game company. It was created to make benefits of concentrative meditation more easily accessible to anyone, including complete novices. This is achieved by creating a game that yields quantifiable and attainable goals, provides feedback, and includes an adaptive algorithm to gradually increase difficulty as users improve.
Stress and sleep data will be recorded at home throughout the intervention using FDA-approved wrist worn multi-sensor watches.
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California, United States
Mean change on the Continuous Performance Task (CPT) over time
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
Mean change in sleep quality
Mean change in sleep quality (i.e., total sleep time / time in bed, therefore this measure incorporates latency to sleep onset, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset and early morning waking, with higher numbers associated with better sleep) over time \[Time Frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants\]
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
Mean change in measures of stress reactivity over time
Measures of heart rate variability (HRV) and electrodermal activity (EDA) while participants perform a stress-inducing task
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
Mean change in Telomere length (quantified in peripheral blood cells) over time
200 mL of blood will be collected from each participant before and after the intervention. Blood will be centrifuged for whole blood cell acquisition and stored at -80 °C for subsequent batch testing. Telomere length (T/S ratio) will be quantified in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
Mean change on a distracted attention task over time
Mean performance on a distracted attention task will be compared pre and post intervention. Divided attention performance will be assessed using the Filter Task that places simultaneous demands on perceptual discrimination abilities and distraction filtering.
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
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Sleep Profiler devices are FDA-cleared reduced-montage EEG recording devices that will be used in accordance with its FDA clearance. They are completely non-invasive and are designed to be comfortable enough to wear all night without interfering with normal sleep. These devices enable quality sleep recordings in the comfort of people's homes, rather than required an overnight stay at a sleep lab at UCSF.
Mean change in Frontal Theta Power over time
Based on previous studies of meditation training and our preliminary data, we predict that MediTrain will lead to significantly enhanced midline frontal theta power during the TOVA in MCI as compared to OA. Beyond most prior studies, by collecting structural MRI data, we will be able to source-localize any observed changes in midline frontal theta.
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants
Mean change in resting state networks over time
We also expect MediTrain will augment intrinsic Default Mode Network (DMN) connectivity, both functionally (measured with resting fMRI111,112) and structurally (measured with DTI-based connectomes). This is hypothesized based on the known association between the DMN,
Time frame: baseline, immediate follow-up, and at a 6 month follow-up in a subset of participants