Informations générales (source: ClinicalTrials.gov)
A Motor Tool for Language Learning (MOTOLANGUAGE)
Interventional
N/A
Hospices Civils de Lyon (Voir sur ClinicalTrials)
janvier 2018
mars 2026
05 avril 2025
This project pursues the validation of an innovative strategy to boost language learning,
based on the benefits derived from sensorimotor training.
The common belief of a rigid brain structure in adult life had to be reconsidered during
the last decade. After training, local increase in cerebral cortex volume and thickness,
the part of the brain containing neuronal cells and synapses, has been documented.
Research has established that brain structures active during training expand while
learning and return to baseline afterwards. The transient structural increase is thought
to reflect "work in progress" within areas involved in learning, meant to integrate new
skills in existing neural circuitries, via strengthening and/or selection of local
neuronal connections. My main hypothesis is that other functions, as long as they rely on
the activity of the same brain territories, can take advantage of this "work in
progress". To use an allegory, imagine the restauration of a building (brain area). It
can start after the request of improvements from some of the residents (trained function)
and then become the occasion for other tenants (other functions) to see realized also
their own wish for improvements. In the end everybody will benefit from the restauration,
provided that they all live in the same building and everybody has posed their requests
during the "work in progress". Out of the allegory, living in the same building means
neural overlap of functions in the brain. The case of motor and linguistic systems
represents, from this perspective, a unique opportunity. State-of-the-art research 1)
proved the existence, and described the temporal evolution of brain plastic changes
during sensorimotor learning, and 2) documented neural overlap and functional
interactions of motor and linguistic systems. This posits solid bases for a crucial step
forward, gravid of important consequences and applications. This project aims to take
this step forward by directly testing the innovative hypothesis that brain changes
induced by sensorimotor learning induce benefits for linguistic functions relying on the
same brain territories.
Etablissements
| Les établissements hors Île-de-France dont les données sont issues de ClinicalTrials.gov Origine et niveau de fiabilité des données | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospices Civils de Lyon - 69500 - Bron - France | Claudio BROZZOLI | Contact (sur clinicalTrials) | |||
Critères
Tous
Inclusion Criteria:
- Be aged between 20 and 40 years old
- Give an informed consent by signature
- Be part of the national health security system (registered to the Securité Sociale)
- Be French speaker
- Be aged between 20 and 40 years old
- Give an informed consent by signature
- Be part of the national health security system (registered to the Securité Sociale)
- Be French speaker
- A person presenting an history of neurological, psychiatric or linguistic problems
cannot be admitted
- Assumption of psychotropic drugs
- Pregnancy or breast-feeding woman
- A person under legal tutoring
- A person under care in other medical structure for reasons different from those of
this research
- A person under administrative or judiciary contention
- A person who is not eligible to a MR-exam according to the relative screening
questionnaire cannot be admitted to the experiments including MR acquisitions in the
protocol
- A person who is not eligible to a tDC Stimulation according to the relative
screening questionnaire cannot be admitted to the experiment including tDCS in the
protocol
- A person who is defined as bilingual according to the criteria described above
cannot be included in this research.
- A person who studied a musical instrument for more than 3 years or plays it
regularly cannot take part to the studies in Objective B1, B2 and B3. This might
introduce a confound in the rate of motor learning and relative brain plasticity.
- A person who has already learned or has been regularly exposed to the language L2
and/or to the sign language chosen for the studies in Objective A1 and A2 cannot
take part to those studies.