The goal of this study is to learn more about the brain pathways and activity involved in creating Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS). The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does VSS arise from spontaneous activity in brain pathways? * Where in the brain does the activity contributing to VSS arise? * How does brain activity contribute to VSS? Participants will: 1. Undergo assessments and questionnaires to understand visual and mental symptoms, cognitive, and sensory function. 2. Make visual judgements based on images presented to them both inside and outside a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. 3. Undergo scanning of their brain while inside of an MRI machine.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
100
Presentation of visual stimuli to quantify the appearance of visual snow or its effects in the visual system of the brain.
Administration of clinical assessments and questionnaires to gather information about visual and mental symptoms, cognitive, and sensory function.
7 tesla fMRI data will be acquired during visual paradigms designed to measure neural responses with and without adaptation.
7 tesla MRS data will be acquired to quantify the concentrations of different brain chemicals in brain regions including visual cortex.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
RECRUITINGPsychophysical Adaptation Task Performance
Visual tasks will consist of perceptual judgments following adaptation (e.g., subject will report when internal or external / simulated visual snow appears the same on the left or right side of the screen). Measures will be compared for visual target stimuli in different task conditions and experiments, with the goal of understanding the neural basis of visual snow.
Time frame: 1.5-2 hours per session, with experiments divided across multiple (e.g., 3) sessions
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Measures
7 tesla fMRI data will be acquired during visual paradigms designed to measure neural responses with and without adaptation. FMRI data will be processed and analyzed to quantify the effect of adaptation across different regions in visual cortex.
Time frame: 1-2 hours per session, with experiments split across multiple (e.g., 3) sessions
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)
7 telsa MRS data will be acquired to quantify the concentration of different brain chemicals in brain areas including visual cortex.
Time frame: 1-2 hours
Clinical Symptom Scores
Measures of visual and mental symptoms, cognitive, and sensory function (e.g., Visual Snow Questionnaire), will be collected using self-report and interview methods. Scores will be compared across groups to differences in visual and mental symptoms in people with and without visual snow syndrome (VSS).
Time frame: 1-2 hours
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