Trail Making TaskNCT07060092
Network Analysis of Bodywide Coordination Supporting Suprapostural Dexterity
A study testing Trail Making Task and Balance board in people with Trail Making Task and Balance Board, run by University of Nebraska at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
Prevailing understandings of movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 19 to 35 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Trail Making Task, Balance Board
- What is being tested?
- Trail Making Task and Balance board
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 48 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 1 Aug 2023to 31 Jul 2024
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
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 19 to 35 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Adult
Who may be able to join
- Be able to provide informed consent
- Be able to stand and walk independently without an assistive device
Who cannot join
- Self-report any diagnosis of a neurological disease
- Self-report any diagnosis of any limb disabilities, injuries, or disease.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
United States1 site
Biomechanics Research Building
Omaha, Nebraska, 68182
About this study
Prevailing understandings of movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Consequently, rehabilitative interventions target the limb or body parts most affected by the disorder, seeking to support the whole body by mending the broken part. However, dexterity is global, functional coordination spanning the whole body. In other words, task completion draws on fundamental interactivity, allowing the body to coordinate various anatomical parts. This coordination may be more vital to healthy movement than individual anatomical parts. Understanding this interactivity is thus paramount to developing novel rehabilitative interventions to prevent falls and improve the quality of life in pathological populations. Studying bodywide coordination for suprapostural dexterity requires innovation in experimental setup and analytical techniques. This project integrates a customizable life-size Trail Making Test with posturography, whole-body movement tracking, eye tracking, and state-of-the-art cascade modeling and network analysis methods to assess functional coordination across the whole body. The experimenters will leverage causal network analyses of multiplicative interactions instrumental in previous studies of whole-body exploratory motor behavior but not yet utilized in studying suprapostural dexterity. Aim 1 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity. The experimenters hypothesize that maintaining an upright stance would produce a functional network of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. The experimenters also hypothesize that participating in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. Aims 2 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity in the face of postural instability. The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface when maintaining an upright stance will produce modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. The experimenters also hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. This modeling framework offers a new way to understand suprapostural dexterity and its breakdown in various movement disorders in light of recent theoretical developments in cascade modeling and network physiology.
Read the detailed description
It is estimated that 42 million people in the United States might suffer from some form of movement disorder. Prevailing understandings of these movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Consequently, rehabilitative interventions target the limb or body parts most affected by the disorder seeking to support the whole body by mending the broken part. However, dexterity is global, functional coordination spanning the whole body. Suprapostural dexterity, for instance, when the task requires an upright posture, is a prime example of how functionality can triumph over anatomical separability. Whatever starts at one or more anatomical areas can swiftly spread throughout the entire body, destabilizing the body on the potential path to task completion. In individuals with movement disorders, the impaired coordination between task engagement and postural instability amplifies the risk of falling. Developing novel rehabilitative interventions to prevent falls and improve the quality of life in individuals with movement disorders thus requires understanding how task completion depends on essential interaction that enables the body to coordinate different anatomical parts.
This project investigates how multiplicative interactions support suprapostural dexterity from two complementary premises. First, movement science has established that postural stability requires a modular structure of functional networks shaped by anatomical constraints. This arrangement indicates a soft assembly and disassembly of functional modules as an individual engages in a task and responds to changing task demands, respectively. Second, movement science has yet to grapple with the multiplicative interactions among movement-system components producing highly complex and unpredictable behaviors beyond the scope of dominant linear modeling approaches. The scientific premises for this proposal are that the dominant network approaches to dexterity are linear, and network approaches can give voice to the nonlinearity we all know is there.
Studying multiplicative interactions among movement-system components and suprapostural dexterity requires innovation in experimental setup and analytical techniques. This project integrates a customizable life-size Trail Making Test (TMT) with posturography, whole-body movement tracking, and eye tracking, along with state-of-the-art cascade modeling and network analysis methods to assess functional coordination across the whole body. The experimenters will leverage causal network analyses of multiplicative interactions instrumental in previous studies of whole-body exploratory motor behavior but not yet utilized in studying suprapostural dexterity.
Specific Aim 1: To investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity.
Hypothesis 1.1: The experimenters hypothesize that maintaining an upright stance would produce a functional network of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components.
Hypothesis 1.2: The experimenters hypothesize that participating in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components.
Specific Aim 2: To investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity in the face of postural instability.
Hypothesis 2.1: The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface when maintaining an upright stance will produce modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing.
Hypothesis 2.2: The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing.
- Conditions
- Trail Making Task, Balance Board
- Being tested
- Trail Making Task, Balance board
- Keywords
- Movement disorder, Postural instability, Fall prevention, Dexterity, Suprapostural control, Motor coordination, Whole-body coordination, Multiplicative interactions, Modular motor networks, Nonlinear movement variability, Trail Making Test (TMT), Posturography, Whole-body kinematics, Eye tracking, Network analysis, Rehabilitation science
- Medical subject headings
- Movement Disorders
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Trail Making TaskBehavioural
Participants will perform a modified, life-size version of the Trail Making Test (TMT) while standing upright, either on a stable (force plates) or unstable (balance board) surface. The task involves visually searching for and tracing a sequential path through spatially randomized numerical targets projected onto a large screen using a laser pointer. This dual-task condition simultaneously engages cognitive, visual, and motor planning systems while requiring continuous postural control. The task is designed to elicit suprapostural coordination, capturing the dynamic interplay between postural stability and goal-directed behavior.
Balance boardBehavioural
Participants will maintain an upright stance on a commercially available balance board positioned atop dual force plates. The unstable surface introduces controlled postural instability, requiring continuous sensorimotor adaptation to preserve balance without external support. This condition is administered alone and in combination with the Trail Making Task to simulate dual-task challenges that more closely resemble real-world balance demands.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Trail Making Task on Stable Surface | Experimental | Participants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on stable force plates. Receives: Behavioral: Trail Making Task |
| Standing on Unstable Surface | Experimental | Participants maintain upright stance on a balance board placed atop force plates (no cognitive task). Receives: Behavioral: Balance board |
| Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface | Experimental | Participants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on a balance board, requiring simultaneous postural and cognitive-motor coordination. Receives: Behavioral: Trail Making Task; Behavioral: Balance board |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Network structure
The outcome measure characterizes the directional, weighted network of multiplicative interactions across the human movement system, derived from vector autoregression (VAR) analysis of multifractal fluctuations in center-of-pressure (CoP), center-of-mass (CoM), and 79 anatomical marker displacement series. Each node in the network represents a body segment or anatomical location, and each edge captures the strength and direction of influence in nonlinear fluctuation propagation across time. These networks are modeled individually for each participant and task condition.
Measured: Day 1
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted11 Jul 2025
- Study start1 Aug 2023
- Primary completion31 Jul 2024
- Study completion31 Jul 2024
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Trail Making TaskStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by University of NebraskaThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- 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
- Non-randomised
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Model description
- This is a within-subject, factorial study investigating how suprapostural dexterity emerges from multiplicative interactions across the human movement system under varying task demands and surface stability conditions. Fifty healthy adults will complete a series of upright standing and whole-body Trail Making Test tasks on stable and unstable surfaces while posturography, full-body kinematics, and eye tracking data are recorded and analyzed using multifractal and network modeling techniques.
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 48 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of Nebraska
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07060092
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 0055-23-EP
- Status last verified
- Jun 2025
- First submitted
- 25 Jun 2025
- Last updated
- 11 Jul 2025
- 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 11 Jul 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Network Analysis of Bodywide Coordination Supporting Suprapostural Dexterity
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT07060092
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 0055-23-EP
- Conditions
- Trail Making Task, Balance Board
- Keywords
- Movement disorder, Postural instability, Fall prevention, Dexterity, Suprapostural control, Motor coordination, Whole-body coordination, Multiplicative interactions
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 48 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- University of NebraskaUniversity, hospital or other
- Study start
- 1 Aug 2023 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 31 Jul 2024 (actual)
- Study completion
- 31 Jul 2024 (actual)
- First posted
- 11 Jul 2025 (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.
Prevailing understandings of movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Consequently, rehabilitative interventions target the limb or body parts most affected by the disorder, seeking to support the whole body by mending the broken part. However, dexterity is global, functional coordination spanning the whole body. In other words, task completion draws on fundamental interactivity, allowing the body to coordinate various anatomical parts. This coordination may be more vital to healthy movement than individual anatomical parts. Understanding this interactivity is thus paramount to developing novel rehabilitative interventions to prevent falls and improve the quality of life in pathological populations. Studying bodywide coordination for suprapostural dexterity requires innovation in experimental setup and analytical techniques. This project integrates a customizable life-size Trail Making Test with posturography, whole-body movement tracking, eye tracking, and state-of-the-art cascade modeling and network analysis methods to assess functional coordination across the whole body. The experimenters will leverage causal network analyses of multiplicative interactions instrumental in previous studies of whole-body exploratory motor behavior but not yet utilized in studying suprapostural dexterity. Aim 1 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity. The experimenters hypothesize that maintaining an upright stance would produce a functional network of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. The experimenters also hypothesize that participating in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components. Aims 2 will investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity in the face of postural instability. The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface when maintaining an upright stance will produce modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. The experimenters also hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing. This modeling framework offers a new way to understand suprapostural dexterity and its breakdown in various movement disorders in light of recent theoretical developments in cascade modeling and network physiology.
Detailed description
It is estimated that 42 million people in the United States might suffer from some form of movement disorder. Prevailing understandings of these movement disorders characterize "broken" movements in a piecewise fashion, for instance, focusing on motor control, muscle tone, posture, or cognition independently of each other. These fractured approaches to movement coordination are blind to the body's functional integrity. Consequently, rehabilitative interventions target the limb or body parts most affected by the disorder seeking to support the whole body by mending the broken part. However, dexterity is global, functional coordination spanning the whole body. Suprapostural dexterity, for instance, when the task requires an upright posture, is a prime example of how functionality can triumph over anatomical separability. Whatever starts at one or more anatomical areas can swiftly spread throughout the entire body, destabilizing the body on the potential path to task completion. In individuals with movement disorders, the impaired coordination between task engagement and postural instability amplifies the risk of falling. Developing novel rehabilitative interventions to prevent falls and improve the quality of life in individuals with movement disorders thus requires understanding how task completion depends on essential interaction that enables the body to coordinate different anatomical parts.
This project investigates how multiplicative interactions support suprapostural dexterity from two complementary premises. First, movement science has established that postural stability requires a modular structure of functional networks shaped by anatomical constraints. This arrangement indicates a soft assembly and disassembly of functional modules as an individual engages in a task and responds to changing task demands, respectively. Second, movement science has yet to grapple with the multiplicative interactions among movement-system components producing highly complex and unpredictable behaviors beyond the scope of dominant linear modeling approaches. The scientific premises for this proposal are that the dominant network approaches to dexterity are linear, and network approaches can give voice to the nonlinearity we all know is there.
Studying multiplicative interactions among movement-system components and suprapostural dexterity requires innovation in experimental setup and analytical techniques. This project integrates a customizable life-size Trail Making Test (TMT) with posturography, whole-body movement tracking, and eye tracking, along with state-of-the-art cascade modeling and network analysis methods to assess functional coordination across the whole body. The experimenters will leverage causal network analyses of multiplicative interactions instrumental in previous studies of whole-body exploratory motor behavior but not yet utilized in studying suprapostural dexterity.
Specific Aim 1: To investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity.
Hypothesis 1.1: The experimenters hypothesize that maintaining an upright stance would produce a functional network of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components.
Hypothesis 1.2: The experimenters hypothesize that participating in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions among movement-system components.
Specific Aim 2: To investigate how multiplicative interactions among movement-system components support suprapostural dexterity in the face of postural instability.
Hypothesis 2.1: The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface when maintaining an upright stance will produce modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing.
Hypothesis 2.2: The experimenters hypothesize that destabilizing contact with the ground surface in the Trail Making Test would produce a succession of distinct, modular networks of multiplicative interactions with increased connectivity among these modules compared to stable standing.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Non-randomised
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 3
- Model description
- This is a within-subject, factorial study investigating how suprapostural dexterity emerges from multiplicative interactions across the human movement system under varying task demands and surface stability conditions. Fifty healthy adults will complete a series of upright standing and whole-body Trail Making Test tasks on stable and unstable surfaces while posturography, full-body kinematics, and eye tracking data are recorded and analyzed using multifractal and network modeling techniques.
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Trail Making Task on Stable Surface | Experimental | Behavioral: Trail Making TaskParticipants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on stable force plates. |
| Standing on Unstable Surface | Experimental | Behavioral: Balance boardParticipants maintain upright stance on a balance board placed atop force plates (no cognitive task). |
| Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface | Experimental | Behavioral: Trail Making Task, Behavioral: Balance boardParticipants perform the Trail Making Task while standing on a balance board, requiring simultaneous postural and cognitive-motor coordination. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 19 to 35 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Adult
Key inclusion criteria (2 listed)
- Be able to provide informed consent
- Be able to stand and walk independently without an assistive device
Key exclusion criteria (2 listed)
- Self-report any diagnosis of a neurological disease
- Self-report any diagnosis of any limb disabilities, injuries, or disease.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Trail Making TaskParticipants will perform a modified, life-size version of the Trail Making Test (TMT) while standing upright, either on a stable (force plates) or unstable (balance board) surface. The task involves visually searching for and tracing a sequential path through spatially randomized numerical targets projected onto a large screen using a laser pointer. This dual-task condition simultaneously engages cognitive, visual, and motor planning systems while requiring continuous postural control. The task is designed to elicit suprapostural coordination, capturing the dynamic interplay between postural stability and goal-directed behavior. | Behavioural | Trail Making Task on Stable Surface, Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface |
| Balance boardParticipants will maintain an upright stance on a commercially available balance board positioned atop dual force plates. The unstable surface introduces controlled postural instability, requiring continuous sensorimotor adaptation to preserve balance without external support. This condition is administered alone and in combination with the Trail Making Task to simulate dual-task challenges that more closely resemble real-world balance demands. | Behavioural | Standing on Unstable Surface, Trail Making Task on Unstable Surface |
Primary outcome
Network structure
Time frame: Day 1
The outcome measure characterizes the directional, weighted network of multiplicative interactions across the human movement system, derived from vector autoregression (VAR) analysis of multifractal fluctuations in center-of-pressure (CoP), center-of-mass (CoM), and 79 anatomical marker displacement series. Each node in the network represents a body segment or anatomical location, and each edge captures the strength and direction of influence in nonlinear fluctuation propagation across time. These networks are modeled individually for each participant and task condition.
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 11 Jul 2025.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
The record lists no contact. Use the official record to reach the sponsor.
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Trail Making Task and Balance board in people with Trail Making Task and Balance Board, run by University of Nebraska at 1 site in United States.
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 2 inclusion and 2 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: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 11 Jul 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. 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?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Network structure (time frame: Day 1). 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 11 Jul 2025.