NCT03794856Completed
The Dallas Asthma Brain and Cognition (ABC) Study
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Last updated 9 Jul 2025
Brief summary (registry, in English)
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.
- Status (registry)
- Completed
- Study type
- Observational
- Enrollment
- 130 (actual)
- First submitted
- 12 Dec 2018
- Start date
- 21 Feb 2019
- Primary completion date
- 28 May 2025
- Lead sponsor
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
- Diseases
- Asthma
- NCT number
- NCT03794856
What you commit to
- Study type: Observational
- Participants enrolled: 130
- From 21 Feb 2019 to the primary completion date, 28 May 2025
- 2 sites in 1 country
- Visits and tests: ask the trial team, the registry does not list them
Built from the registry fields of ClinicalTrials.gov. It describes the study, not your situation.
Who cannot take part
Copied verbatim from ClinicalTrials.gov and grouped by topic. Only the trial team decides who can take part.
Prior treatment
- Treatment with oral corticosteroids in the previous 6 weeks, because of the potent effects of this drug on airway reactivity.
- 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.
Other illness
- 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).
- 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.
Other
- Spirometry: Peak expiratory flow (PEF) below 60% of predicted.
- Corrected vision poorer than 20/30 on Snellen Eye Chart.
- Not proficient in English.
- In the opinion of the principal investigator, participant is otherwise unsuitable for this study.
Who the study is looking for
- 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.
Age in the registry: 40 years to 69 years · Sex: All · Accepts healthy volunteers
Sites (2)
Sites in registry order. Pick your city on the disease page to sort them by distance.
| Site | City | Country | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Coordinator of this site? Confirm its status | Dallas | United States | Unknown status |
| Southern Methodist University Coordinator of this site? Confirm its status | Dallas | United States | Unknown status |
This page is information, not medical advice. Discuss any trial with your doctor.