Study Participation

© Shu-Chen_Li

The Chair of Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience investigates numerous exciting topics on human development across the lifespan, e.g., perception, attention, memory, and decision-making from childhood to old adulthood.

We use a variety of methods, usually combined: Questionnaires, computer-based tasks (no computer skills required) and neuroscientific methods such as EEG or fNIRS - the latter can be used to measure brain activity, e.g. in learning and remembering.

Our studies are in the public interest and are funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

LIFELAB

The Lifelab is located in the east wing of the university building "Weberbau" / WEB

WEB Weberplatz Ost
Weberplatz 5 / Teplitzer Str.16
01219 Dresden

in the rooms 100-104 of the 1st floor. You can find a map in the Campusnavigator.
Detailed directions (in PDF format) can be found here: Wegbeschreibung zum Labor "Lifelab".

HIL-LAB

The Hil-Lab is located in the western part of the university building "Barkhausen-Bau" / BAR

BAR Barkhausen-Bau House C (Building no.: 1415)
Helmholtzstraße 18
01069 Dresden

in the S-rooms of floor -1.

All personal data (your contact details in our subject database) are treated with absolute confidentiality and in accordance with strict data protection and technical guidelines. The data collected during the study are stored anonymously and do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about your identity.

The legal basis for the processing of personal data is in particular Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a) DSGVO (consent) in conjunction with § 12 - Saxon Data Protection Implementation Act (SächsDSDG) (processing of personal data for purposes of scientific research) and §§ 4, 45 Saxon Higher Education Freedom Act (SächsHSFG) (research).

Your personal data will be stored in a protected database of the TU Dresden until revoked; only study teams of our chair have access. Unless otherwise stipulated by law or you have expressly consented in individual cases, the data will not be transferred to third parties.

Your basic rights according to the EU General Data Protection Regulation DSGVO:

1) Voluntariness and revocation (Art. 7 (3) DSGVO): The provision of personal data is voluntary. Consent to the processing of personal data may be revoked at any time with the consequence that the personal data of the person concerned will not be further processed.

2) Right of access (Art. 15 GDPR): Data subjects have the right to request information about the data processed about them and the possible recipients of this data at any time. They are entitled to a response within a period of one month after receipt of the request for information.

3) Right to rectification, erasure and restriction (Art. 16-18 DSGVO): Data subjects may at any time request TU Dresden to correct, delete or restrict the processing of their personal data.

4) Right to data portability (Art. 20 DSGVO): Data subjects may request that the controller transmit their personal data to them in a machine-readable format. Alternatively, they may request the direct transfer of the personal data they have provided to another controller, where this is possible.

5) Right to lodge a complaint (Art. 77 GDPR): Data subjects may contact the Data Protection Officer of TU Dresden at any time and, in the event of a complaint pursuant to Art. 77 DSGVO, the competent supervisory authority for data protection. The competent supervisory authority is:

Saxon Data Protection Commissioner
Ms. Dr. Juliane Hundert
Devrientstraße 5
01067 Dresden
E-mail: saechsdsb@slt.sachsen.de
Phone: +49 (0)351 85471-101
www.saechsdsb.de

To claim the rights, a notification in text form (letter, e-mail or fax) to the responsible person is sufficient.

Join the subjects database of the Chair of Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience to be contacted about study participation that is suitable for you.

We are always on the lookout for participants. We think it is very important that everyone has the chance to take part in our research projects, regardless of age, sex or other factors. To this end, we have our own contact database in our chair, which you can think of as a kind of internal address book. People who meet certain requirements (e.g. a certain age) for one of our experiments can be contacted directly and invited to take part in an experiment. However, inclusion in the contact database does not necessitate participation in the study on your part or ours. All your data will of course always be treated confidentially.

Experiments and participation requirements

We are interested in various research topics related to the life span and human development. Depending on the experiment, there are differences in terms of the duration of the experiment, the number of appointments and the type of tasks. If you would like to take part in our experiments and are unsure whether you are eligible, please do not hesitate to contact us.
In principle, test subjects are selected for experiments according to age and sex. So if you belong to an age group we are looking for, there is a chance that you will be contacted. Some experiments also have specific requirements for participation. These will be communicated to you in advance or you will be asked about them. This could relate to aspects such as handedness, implants or previous illnesses.

You may only be contacted by us after a considerable period of time. Furthermore, it is possible that all of the participant spots have already been filled and you will therefore not be contacted about participation, even though you fulfill the requirements.

Contact and appointments

Members of our study team will contact you by e-mail or telephone to enquire about your possible participation in a particular experiment. The experiment will be presented to you and dates will be suggested. If you are not interested or have little time at the moment, you can of course decline. You will remain in our database until you inform us that you wish to be removed.
Dates for your participation in our experiments are always agreed with you well in advance. Most experiments take place either in our laboratories at Weberplatz or in the Barkhausenbau on the TU Dresden campus.

If you have any questions or concerns, please call us or send us an e-mail. A reply may take a few days, we ask for your understanding. To be included in the database, please read the corresponding privacy and consent forms for

© Lilab

• adults [in German] or
• minors [in German].

You can either sign and return them to us by mail or simply informally email us at with your contact information and briefly confirm that you have read the privacy and consent statement. We will then provisionally register you and you can sign the consent form when you visit us for your first study participation.

You can also reach us by phone at 0351/463 39006. The phone is not occupied continuously, feel free to use our answering machine. If you leave a number or email address, we will get back to you. A response can sometimes take a few days, we thank you for your understanding.

• Timeframe: ongoing
• Topic: This study investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the development of perception-action integration in the healthy population, and how this is altered in individuals with Tourette's syndrome. We also aim to investigate the mechanisms contributing to individual differences in symptom remission in individuals with Tourette's syndrome.

• Procedure: The study includes short online questionnaires (1 x parent, 1 x child) and usually 2 appointments. At the first appointment the subjects solve small knowledge tasks and answer questions about their psychological well-being (approx. 1.5h). At the second appointment, tasks are completed on the computer during an EEG measurement (approx. 3 hours).

• Location: Weberplatz 5, 01217 Dresden

• Methods: EEG (electroencephalography), questionnaires, clinical interview, computer-based tasks
• Participation requirements:
  ° Age 8 - 18 years
  ° No neurological or mental illnesses  
  ° Fluent written and spoken German  
  ° No skin disease in the head area  
  ° No red-green weakness
• Estimated experiment duration:
  ° either 2 sessions (Session 1 = approx. 2 hours; Session 2 = approx. 3 hours)
  ° or 1 session (approx. 5 hours)
• Compensation: 50 €
• Contact: tec4tic@tu-dresden.de (also welcome as parents)

• Timeframe: ongoing
• Topic: We investigate the neural correlates associated with various vibrotactile feedbacks during virtual/augmented reality driving.
• Procedure: You will sit in a driving simulator and watch short video clips while we measure your brain activity.
• Location: Barkhausenbau, Georg-Schumann-Straße 11, 01187 Dresden
• Methods: fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy), questionnaires, computer-based tasks / driving simulator
• Participation requirements:
  ° Age 15-17 years
  ° Fluent written and spoken German  
  ° Normal vision (or normally corrected, e.g. glasses)  
  ° No neurological or psychiatric illness or previous illness
  ° No heart disease or pacemaker
  ° No medical conditions that can be aggravated by whole-body vibration (e.g. back pain)
• Estimated experiment duration: 2 hours
• Compensation: 20 €
• Contact: ceti_vt@tu-dresden.de

• Zeitraum: laufend, voraussichtlich bis Herbst 2025
• Thema: In dieser Studie werden die neuronalen Mechanismen untersucht, die der Entwicklung der Wahrnehmung und dem Wortlernen in der gesunden Bevölkerung zugrunde liegen. Außerdem werden auch Modalitätsspezifische Gedächtnisprozesse geprüft.

• Ablauf: Die Studie umfasst 2 Termine. Beim ersten Termin werden die Proband*innen an einem Sprachentwicklungstest teilnehmen (ca. 1h). Zum zweiten Termin werden während einer EEG-Messung Aufgaben am Computer bearbeitet (ca. 2h).

• Ort: Lifelab, Weberplatz 5, Ostflügel, 01217 Dresden

• Methoden: EEG (Elektroenzephalografie), Fragebögen, Sprachentwicklungstestbatterie
• Teilnahme-Voraussetzungen:
  ° Alter 5 - 6 Jahre
  ° Alter 9 - 10 Jahre
  ° Keine neurologischen oder psychischen Erkrankungen  
  ° Deutsch als Muttersprache  
  ° Keine Hauterkrankung im Kopfbereich  
  ° Keine Lese-Rechtschreibschwächen
  ° Rechts-Händigkeit
  ° Normales oder normal-korrigiertes Seh- und Hörvermögen
• Voraussichtliche Dauer des Experiments:
  ° 2 Termine (Termin 1 = ca. 1 Stunde; Termin 2 = ca. 2 Stunden)
• Aufwandsentschädigung: 36 €
• Kontakt: (gerne auch als Eltern; Einverständnis notwendig)

Electroencephalography (EEG) measures the electrical activity of the brain on the surface of the skull. For this purpose, electrodes, which are attached to a cap (similar to a bathing cap), are brought into contact with the scalp using a special gel. The signals received (voltage fluctuations) are processed by a computer and used to display and analyze brain waves. EEG is a non-invasive imaging procedure. When performed properly, no health hazards or risks are to be expected.The electrode gel used is water soluble and you can wash your hair in our laboratory. The electrode gel used is water soluble and you can wash your hair in our laboratory.
Although electronecephalography is considered a low-risk routine procedure, in individual cases you may experience temporary mild skin friction / irritation of the scalp when putting on the electrode cap. Of course, you can stop the examination at any time.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) measures regional changes in brain tissue oxygenation of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin and can allow conclusions to be drawn about brain activity in investigated brain areas. For this purpose, light-emitting diodes and sensors attached to a cap (similar to a bathing cap) are brought into contact with the scalp. Reflected near-infrared light is used to measure regional changes in the concentration of hemoglobin (oxygen consumption). This method has been used in research since the early 1990s. fNIRS is non-invasive and there are no known health hazards or risks.

Data glove or sensor suit are textile glove or full body suit in which micro sensors are built in. These sensors can be used to record the movement of your hand or body. Such devices are commonly used in video games or for animation in the film industry. If performed properly, no health hazards or risks are to be expected.

In computer-based procedures, tasks are processed which are presented by means of a computer, e.g. on a screen, via headphones or vibration elements. The answers are given by mouse or keyboard pressure or verbally. The examinations take place in an undisturbed environment to allow optimal performance and concentration. Computer-based procedures can be used to draw conclusions about perceptual processes, for example, through accurate reaction time measurements.

During a clinical interview, you will be asked a series of questions about disorder-specific symptoms (e.g., obsessive-compulsive disorder, depressive disorder, or various anxiety disorders) that are relevant or must be ruled out in the context of study participation. The collected data will be treated strictly confidential.

In the context of an experiment, questionnaires of different types can be used; depending on the study, e.g. handedness or disorder-specific symptoms are inquired. You will receive more detailed information from the respective study team. Data processing is anonymous and in accordance with strict data protection guidelines.

With VR (virtual reality), you are immersed in a virtual world that we present with computer graphics on VR glasses. The movements of these VR glasses are tracked by light sensors in the room in order to reproduce these movements in the virtual world. Some VR environments are also designed to be interactive so that you can interact with the virtual objects using control devices.
With AR (augmented reality), unlike VR, you are not immersed in a completely virtual world, but virtual objects are projected onto the real environment with the help of glasses. This means that you can see real and virtual objects and can also interact with the virtual objects, e.g. manipulate them with your hand (see pictures below).

© TUD epsy