The Dallas Asthma Brain and Cognition (ABC) Study

Completed

Conditions studied: Asthma

In brief

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease that leads to episodic symptom exacerbations, which exerts a substantial burden on quality of life and can influence other health domains if not adequately controlled. Asthma prevalence rates have increased in the past decade, affecting 8.4% (25.7 million people) of the United States population. The economic costs of asthma have been estimated annually with $56 billion in the US alone. Despite progress in pharmacological treatment, overall asthma control remains unsatisfactory and treatment non-adherence is extremely high. Asthma is particularly under diagnosed and understudied in aging adults. This problem will increase in coming decades given demographic trends and will disproportionally contribute to the societal and personal economic costs associated with asthma treatment and management. In the proposed 4-year project we will evaluate, in a two-session assessment recruiting a total of 126 asthma patients and 66 healthy controls aged 40-69 years, the extent to which asthma and aging are associated with changes in cognition and brain chemistry, structure, and function.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT03794856

Run by

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

People needed

130

Starts

2019-02-21

Expected to finish

2025-05-28

Last updated by the study team

2025-07-09

Who can join

Age: 40 and older, up to 69. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• For asthma patients: diagnosis of asthma (verified by a medical documentation) for at least 2 years; for healthy volunteers: no significant medical or psychiatric history.
• Ages 40 to 69 years old.
• Proficient in English.
• Education level of at least 10th grade level.

You may not qualify if…

• Treatment with oral corticosteroids in the previous 6 weeks, because of the potent effects of this drug on airway reactivity.
• Spirometry: Peak expiratory flow (PEF) below 60% of predicted.
• Diagnosis of vocal cord dysfunction (identified by abnormalities in spirometric flow-volume curves), clinically significant chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or emphysema.
• Presence or history of medical or neurological disorder that may affect brain function and the physiological systems of interest (e.g. angina, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, transient ischemic attacks, cerebrovascular accidents, emphysema, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, history of seizures or head trauma, endocrine disorders or renal disease, chemotherapy or radiation presently or in the past 5 years, uncontrolled diabetes, blood pressure above 160/90 (self-reported or measured at session 1).
• Corrected vision poorer than 20/30 on Snellen Eye Chart.
• Presence or history of Schizophrenia, Psychosis, Dementia, Bipolar I, Bipolar II, PTSD or Acute Stress Disorder
• Current or recent history (within 1 year) of Substance Related Disorders, current recreational drug use (defined as past 30 days) or consuming more than 20 alcoholic drinks per week.
• Current treatment with anti-psychotics, sedatives, benzodiazepines with a half-life longer than 6 hours.
• Previous electroconvulsive therapy.
• Presence of history of orthopaedic circumstances and metallic inserts interfering with MR scanning (prior surgeries and/or implant pacemakers, pacemaker wires, artificial heart value, brain aneurysm surgery, middle ear implant, non-removable hearing aid or jewelry, braces or extensive dental work, cataract surgery or lens implant, implanted mechanical or electrical device, artificial limb or joint, foreign metallic objects in the body such as bullets, BB's, shrapnel, or metalwork fragments, pregnancy, claustrophobia, uncontrollable shaking, or inability to lie still for one hour.
• Not proficient in English.
• In the opinion of the principal investigator, participant is otherwise unsuitable for this study.

Where it is running

• Southern Methodist University — Dallas, Texas, United States
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center — Dallas, Texas, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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