Effects of Combined Treatment With tDCS and Cognitive Training in Patients With Fibromyalgia

Summary

Chronic pain represents an important health problem responsible for decreases in quality of life, and is associated with great negative impact in society and economy. In many cases, its treatment does not reach therapeutic success causing health professionals and patients dissatisfaction. Chronic pain is also associated with somatization, hopelessness and catastrophizing thinking. These information processing includes sensorial, emotional and cognitive-appraisal thinking, which manifests the working of neural networks at cortical and sub-cortical levels. Attention and memory are a central aspect in the processing of pain modulation. Like in addictions (e.g. smoking, alcohol), chronic pain may debut with displacement in the focus of attention and alterations in the sensorial processing in the incentive-motivation tests. Considering that other studies have indicated that experimental and clinical pain is capable of modulating cognitive activities such as attention,memory and expectation, in this study the investigators will test whether cognitive training, tDCS, or the combination of both interventions decrease cognitive deficits associated with Fibromyalgia

Conditions

• Fibromyalgia

Interventions

DEVICE

tDCS-Sham

Sham tDCS will involve an identical electrode montage, with stimulation ceasing after a 30-second ramp-up period to provide equivalent scalp sensation.

DEVICE

tDCS-Active

tDCS was delivered using the anode electrode positioned over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFE) and the cathode electrode at supra orbital right region. The electrodes were placed into a 25-35 cm2 square sponge immersed in saline solution for better current conductivity. Current density used was 2 mA and electrodes attached to the scalp were sustained by rubber band.

OTHER

Cognitive training

. The cognitive training consisted of an online application of a Dual N-Back task .The Training will last for 8 days.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

  collaborator OTHER

• Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Wolnei Caumo, PhD · Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-11-30

Primary Completion

2017-07-10

Completion

2017-07-10

Countries

• Brazil

Study Locations