Fluency tasks and fNIRS in memory assessments
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Adapting Verbal Fluency Tasks for Non-Native English Speakers: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study
IRAS ID
357911
Contact name
Daniel Blackburn
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 6 months, 31 days
Research summary
Dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK, and its prevalence is expected to increase in the coming years, especially among ethnic minority groups. The current Dementia assessments involve verbal fluency tasks (VFTs), which are highly sensitive in detecting early stages of Dementia (Mild cognitive impairment: MCI). However, these assessments do not work as well in patients from minority groups, and those who speak English as an additional language. As such, we want to use non-invasive neuroimaging; functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), to determine whether the assessments we use involve the same neural processes in people who speak more than one language, compared to people who speak just English and whether combining neuroimaging with memory assessments can improve their accuracy across underrepresented ethnic minority groups.
To do this, we will use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to look at the brain activity of healthy people completing verbal fluency tasks who speak more than one language, and compare this to healthy people who speak just English to see whether these tasks use the same brain areas in both groups, and whether we can find a way to assess more similar areas across both groups by using a different type of verbal fluency task. Recruitment would take place across the University of Sheffield, online volunteer databases, and through community centre collaborations. We then want to recruit MCI patients from the Sheffield memory service to investigate whether fNIRS + VFTs has the potential to detect brain activity changes in the early stages of Dementia.
This work is part of a PhD project, so will last around 3 years. This work has the potential to help in the development in novel memory assessment procedures to reduce the current bias we see in the tools we use, and to detect Dementia in its earlier stages.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/PR/0872
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion