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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Over Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Alcoholism

NCT01330394 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: PHASE2 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 33

Last updated 2013-12-24

Study results available
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Summary

Alcohol dependency is the most frequent addiction leading to a massive burden of both, patients health, and economy. Present therapeutic concepts suffer from limited efficacy, and thus new innovative therapies are needed. Neuroscientific studies have shown that prefrontal function in alcohol-dependent patients is impaired, leading to cognitive disturbances, and continuation of dependent behaviour. The results of pilot studies demonstrate that activation of prefrontal cortices via non-invasive brain stimulation improves cognitive performance in healthy subjects, and diminishes dependency-related behaviour in patients. The investigators aim to develop a stimulation protocol suited to induce a clinically relevant improvement of prefrontal functions in patients suffering from alcohol dependency. Therefore, the investigators will develop stimulation protocols which are able to modulate prefrontal activation for a much longer time course than those currently available, and will explore if the induced physiological alterations translate to respective cognitive improvements and reduction of addictive behaviour.

Conditions

  • Alcohol Dependence
  • Executive Dysfunction
  • Abnormal Craving for Drugs

Interventions

DEVICE

transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS, 5 x 7 cm2, 1 mA, during 10 min) will be applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex once a week for 5 consecutive weeks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Harvard University

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of Göttingen

    collaborator OTHER

  • Federal University of Espirito Santo

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Ester M Nakamura-Palacios, MD, PhD · Federal University of Espírito Santo

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
TRIPLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
65 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2011-06-30
Primary Completion
2013-07-31
Completion
2013-07-31

Countries

  • Brazil

Study Locations

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Entities

Companies

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01330394 on ClinicalTrials.gov