Functional Differences in Effortful Control
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01993147. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
The purpose of this study was to learn more about the brain circuits involved with effortful control in healthy adult participants. It was planned that the study would enroll 80 participants to a dual task paradigm pilot while undergoing a fMRI scan to assess brain mechanisms that cause the "depletion effect". This effect refers to the observation that people perform more poorly on effortful control tasks after they have already performed task requiring effortful control. Then subsequent study participants would be given either methylphenidate (also known as 'Ritalin') which is FDA approved and the most widely-used medication for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or a placebo, which is a sugar pill. Each participant would also perform some computer tasks that have been shown in previous studies to require effortful control while undergoing an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) which takes a special kind of picture of the brain. The study's goal was to learn more about the brain mechanisms by which methylphenidate improves effortful control. After enrolling the first 50 participants, the study assessed whether a depletion effect was observed in the dual task paradigm. It was found that there was not: there was no statistically significant difference in effortful control performance comparing subjects who did and did not perform a prior effortful control task. Because the behavioral manipulation failed, it was determined that the drug manipulation portion of the study was no longer justified. Thus, after enrolling 50 participants to the pilot part of the study, the decision was made to terminate the study without beginning the trial of methylphenidate.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01993147
- Recruitment status
- Terminated
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 50 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 35 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Sep 11, 2014
- Primary completion
- Jun 7, 2015
- Completion
- Jun 7, 2015
- Last update posted
- Dec 1, 2019
2014 – 2015
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rachel Upjohn Building, East Medical Campus | Ann Arbor | Michigan | 48109-2700 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01993147, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 1, 2019 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01993147 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.