Evaluation of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in Patients Who Speak Two Languages Fluently

Status:	Recruiting
Conditions:	Brain Cancer
Therapuetic Areas:	Oncology
Healthy:	No
Age Range:	18 - Any
Updated:	4/6/2019
Start Date:	March 30, 2018
End Date:	September 2019
Contact:	Andrei Holodny, MD
Email:	holodnya@mskcc.org
Phone:	212-639-3182

Graph Theoretical Analysis of Pre-operative fMRI Data in Bilingual Patients With Brain Tumors

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a non-invasive test used to detect changes in
brain activity by taking picture of changes in blood flow. The imaging helps doctors better
understand how the brain works. Task based fMRI (TB fMRI) prompts patients to perform
different activities (e.g. word selection in a reading task), and is routinely performed on
patients in preparation for a Neurological surgery (surgery that involves the nervous system,
brain and/or spinal cord). The purpose is to locate areas of the brain that control speech
and movement; these images will help make decisions about patient surgeries. However, there
are however gaps in knowledge specific to the language areas of the brain, especially for
non-English patients and bilingual patients (those who are fluent in more than one language).
This study proposes to evaluate if resting state fMRI (RS fMRI) that does not require any
tasks, along with a novel way to analyze these images using "graphy theory," may provide more
information. Graph theory is a new mathematical method to analyze the fMRI data. The overall
goal is to determine if graph theory analysis on RS fMRI may reduce differences in health
care treatment and outcomes for non-English speaking and bilingual patients. We hope that the
results of this study will allow doctors to perform pre-operative fMRI in patients who do not
speak English.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Patients/ healthy volunteers ≥ 18 years old

- Patients/ healthy volunteers must be able to perform the language paradigms on cue
while inside the scanner

- Patients/ healthy volunteers who are monolingual English speakers, early bilinguals
(English and Spanish) or late bilinguals (English and Spanish)

- Patients must be newly diagnosed with a glioma (from prior histology) or must be
suspected to have a glioma on imaging (to be confirmed by post-operative histology)

- Patient's location of the tumor must involve the expected location of Broca's area
(left pars opercularis and/or pars triangularis). This determination will be made on
the basis of a pre-operative MRI by a fellowship-trained Neuroradiologist

Early bilingual will be defined as acquiring proficiency in the second language before 10
years of age.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Patients/ volunteers who are unable to comply or complete MRI exams as per the
Department of Radiology's standard guidelines (e.g.: claustrophobia, high levels of
anxiety, pacemaker etc.)

- Patient/ volunteers who are unable to perform the language paradigms on cue while
inside the scanner (due to weakness, deafness, inability to understand or follow
instructions etc.)

- Volunteers with a history of neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders or cancer

- Female patients/ volunteers who are pregnant or nursing

- Patients/ volunteers from the vulnerable population, as defined by 45 CFR 46

We found this trial at

sites

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

1275 York Ave
New York, New York 10021

(212) 639-2000