SchizophreniaSensoSchizNCT06361407
Sensory and Cognitive Predictions, and Their Disruptions in Schizophrenia
A study testing Illusion task in people with Schizophrenia and Sensory Processing Disorder, run by Centre Psychothérapique de Nancy at 2 sites in France.
Trial summary
Disturbances in the sense of self and time could play an important role in the development of psychotic symptoms. Previous work has shown that patients have difficulty preparing to process information on the scale of a second, but are abnormally disturbed by slightly asynchronous information on the millisecond scale. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 60 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Schizophrenia, Sensory Processing Disorder
- What is being tested?
- Illusion task
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 68 participants
- Where
- 2 sitesFrance
- Study dates
- 28 Jun 2024to 28 Oct 2027
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 60 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- Male or female;
- Age between 18 and 60 inclusive;
- Subject having dated and signed the consent form prior to the start of any trial-related procedure (guardian or curator where applicable);
- Member of a social security scheme or beneficiary of such a scheme.
Who cannot join
- Psychoactive substance use disorders (as defined by the DSM-V) (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-V);
- Use of benzodiazepines, hallucinogens (in the period preceding before inclusion, for a duration equivalent to 5 half-lives of the product) or cannabis (in the 2 months preceding inclusion);
- Neurological pathology or sequelae;
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD);
- Borderline personality disorder;
- Disabling sensory disorders (visual acuity <0.8);
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- Person deprived of liberty or under court protection;
- Pregnant, parturient or breast-feeding women;
- Subjects in a period of exclusion defined by another clinical study.
Trial locations and contacts
2 sites in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
France2 sites, 2 recruiting
- Recruiting
CHU Sainte Marguerite, APHM
Marseille
Michel CERMOLACCE, PU.PH, 04 91 38 00 00, Michel.CERMOLACCE@ap-hm.fr
Barbara LELLOUCHE, MD
- Recruiting
Centre Hospitalier Drôme Vivarais
Montéléger
Brice MARTIN, MD, 04 75 75 60 60, Brice.MARTIN@ch-dromevivarais.fr
Brice MARTIN, MD
About this study
Disturbances in the sense of self and time could play an important role in the development of psychotic symptoms. Previous work has shown that patients have difficulty preparing to process information on the scale of a second, but are abnormally disturbed by slightly asynchronous information on the millisecond scale. In both cases, the anomalies could explain the patients' unusual experience of time. The hypothesis in neurotypical patients is that small delays or asynchronies asynchronies are treated as irrelevant information and ignored and ignored, whereas in patients suffering from schizophrenia they would disrupt the flow of time. This hypothesis is tested with a new visual illusion.
Read the detailed description
In the task, two squares move at constant speed in a straight line towards each other. When they collide and disappear neurotypical individuals perceive a gap between the two squares rather than contact. This unexpected effect cannot be explained by a 'cognitive' expectation, since what is consciously expected is collision and contact. It has been shown that it is sensory predictions which explain the illusion of space at the moment of contact. Indeed, a movement trajectory is accompanied by sensory predictions, which help to anticipate the position of the moving object, and of the contrast between the edges of the squares and the background. At the moment of collision, the contrast disappears and is processed as a prediction error. If subjects do not have time to correct the error, they see a gap, as if the figure-ground contrast was still there. Conversely, when a rebound effect is introduced into the task (the squares are moved in the opposite direction after the collision), the illusion diminishes, as if the rebound reinforces the (top-down) expectation of a collision.
Perturbations will be introduced during the trajectory in the illusion task with and without rebound to test this hypothesis (acceleration on a millisecond scale vs. uniform speed). Patients suffering from schizophrenia, whose prediction mechanisms are fragile, are expected to be abnormally sensitive to trajectory changes. The experimental manipulations will help to compare sensory prediction (illusion without rebound) and top-down (conscious) prediction (illusion with rebound).
The protocol will also help to specify which types of prediction (sensory or cognitive) underlie patients' sense patients' sense of self. In short, the protocol is designed to improve the pathophysiological understanding of sense-of-self disorders in schizophrenia
- Conditions
- Schizophrenia, Sensory Processing Disorder
- Being tested
- Illusion task
- Keywords
- sensory prediction, motion perception, prediction error
- Medical subject headings
- Schizophrenia
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Illusion taskBehavioural
Also called EASE evaluation, fNART, CPT-AX
The task is the illusion already described in the arm description. All participants will additionally benefit from a short neuropsychological evaluation exploring attention (CPT-AX) and semantic knowledge (fNART) and a clinical evaluation exploring the sense of self (EASE).
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| effect of trajectory perturbation | Experimental | All participants will run the task consisting in 2 squares moving towards each other. On each trial they will answer whether the squares touch or do not touch. All participants are tested with all experimental conditions. The rate of 'touch' responses will be compared when there is a trajectory perturbation without rebound vs. a trajectory with perturbation with rebound vs. a trajectory without perturbation and without rebound vs. a trajectory without perturbation and with rebound. Receives: Behavioral: Illusion task |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Effect of a millisecond-level trajectory perturbation
Change in the rate of illusion in case of a trajectory perturbation (compared to the rate of illusion in the absence of perturbation)
Measured: Month 4
Secondary outcomes (2)
Baseline rate of illusion
Frequency of the illusion perception when there is no trajectory perturbation and no rebound after the collision
Measured: month 4
Effect of a rebound (top-down, conscious influence)
Change in the rate of illusion in case of a rebound (compared to the rate of illusion in the absence of rebound)
Measured: month 4
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted11 Apr 2024
- Study start28 Jun 2024
- Primary completion28 Oct 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion28 Oct 2027 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for SchizophreniaStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Model description
- Individuals with schizophrenia will be tested in parallel with neurotypicals
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 68 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Centre Psychothérapique de Nancy
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Anne Giersch, MD PhD, Principal investigator, Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06361407
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 2023-A02464-41
- Acronym
- SensoSchiz
- Status last verified
- Mar 2026
- First submitted
- 3 Apr 2024
- Last updated
- 25 Mar 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 25 Mar 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Sensory and Cognitive Predictions, and Their Disruptions in Schizophrenia
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06361407
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- SensoSchiz / 2023-A02464-41
- Conditions
- Schizophrenia, Sensory Processing Disorder
- Keywords
- sensory prediction, motion perception, prediction error
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Enrolment
- 68 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- Centre Psychothérapique de NancyUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
- Study start
- 28 Jun 2024 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 28 Oct 2027 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 28 Oct 2027 (estimated)
- First posted
- 11 Apr 2024 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Disturbances in the sense of self and time could play an important role in the development of psychotic symptoms. Previous work has shown that patients have difficulty preparing to process information on the scale of a second, but are abnormally disturbed by slightly asynchronous information on the millisecond scale. In both cases, the anomalies could explain the patients' unusual experience of time. The hypothesis in neurotypical patients is that small delays or asynchronies asynchronies are treated as irrelevant information and ignored and ignored, whereas in patients suffering from schizophrenia they would disrupt the flow of time. This hypothesis is tested with a new visual illusion.
Detailed description
In the task, two squares move at constant speed in a straight line towards each other. When they collide and disappear neurotypical individuals perceive a gap between the two squares rather than contact. This unexpected effect cannot be explained by a 'cognitive' expectation, since what is consciously expected is collision and contact. It has been shown that it is sensory predictions which explain the illusion of space at the moment of contact. Indeed, a movement trajectory is accompanied by sensory predictions, which help to anticipate the position of the moving object, and of the contrast between the edges of the squares and the background. At the moment of collision, the contrast disappears and is processed as a prediction error. If subjects do not have time to correct the error, they see a gap, as if the figure-ground contrast was still there. Conversely, when a rebound effect is introduced into the task (the squares are moved in the opposite direction after the collision), the illusion diminishes, as if the rebound reinforces the (top-down) expectation of a collision.
Perturbations will be introduced during the trajectory in the illusion task with and without rebound to test this hypothesis (acceleration on a millisecond scale vs. uniform speed). Patients suffering from schizophrenia, whose prediction mechanisms are fragile, are expected to be abnormally sensitive to trajectory changes. The experimental manipulations will help to compare sensory prediction (illusion without rebound) and top-down (conscious) prediction (illusion with rebound).
The protocol will also help to specify which types of prediction (sensory or cognitive) underlie patients' sense patients' sense of self. In short, the protocol is designed to improve the pathophysiological understanding of sense-of-self disorders in schizophrenia
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
- Model description
- Individuals with schizophrenia will be tested in parallel with neurotypicals
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| effect of trajectory perturbation | Experimental | Behavioral: Illusion taskAll participants will run the task consisting in 2 squares moving towards each other. On each trial they will answer whether the squares touch or do not touch. All participants are tested with all experimental conditions. The rate of 'touch' responses will be compared when there is a trajectory perturbation without rebound vs. a trajectory with perturbation with rebound vs. a trajectory without perturbation and without rebound vs. a trajectory without perturbation and with rebound. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 60 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (4 listed)
- Male or female;
- Age between 18 and 60 inclusive;
- Subject having dated and signed the consent form prior to the start of any trial-related procedure (guardian or curator where applicable);
- Member of a social security scheme or beneficiary of such a scheme.
Key exclusion criteria (9 listed)
- Psychoactive substance use disorders (as defined by the DSM-V) (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-V);
- Use of benzodiazepines, hallucinogens (in the period preceding before inclusion, for a duration equivalent to 5 half-lives of the product) or cannabis (in the 2 months preceding inclusion);
- Neurological pathology or sequelae;
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD);
- Borderline personality disorder;
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Illusion taskAlso: EASE evaluation, fNART, CPT-AXThe task is the illusion already described in the arm description. All participants will additionally benefit from a short neuropsychological evaluation exploring attention (CPT-AX) and semantic knowledge (fNART) and a clinical evaluation exploring the sense of self (EASE). | Behavioural | effect of trajectory perturbation |
Primary outcome
Effect of a millisecond-level trajectory perturbation
Time frame: Month 4
Change in the rate of illusion in case of a trajectory perturbation (compared to the rate of illusion in the absence of perturbation)
2 secondary outcomes
Baseline rate of illusion
Time frame: month 4
Effect of a rebound (top-down, conscious influence)
Time frame: month 4
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 25 Mar 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
Anne Giersch, MD PhD principal investigator
Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France
2 sites in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Illusion task in people with Schizophrenia and Sensory Processing Disorder, run by Centre Psychothérapique de Nancy at 2 sites in France.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 9 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 25 Mar 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 2 sites in France. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Contact Anne Giersch, MD PhD (0033 3 88 116471, giersch@unistra.fr), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Effect of a millisecond-level trajectory perturbation (time frame: Month 4). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 25 Mar 2026.