Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) for Cognitive Impairments in Patients With Schizophrenia

Summary

This trial attempts to investigate whether 10 sessions of tACS improves cognitive function, especially which domains of cognitive function are most improved and to investigate whether 10 sessions of tACS affecting brain activation during a working memory task and changes patterns of brain connectivity networks.Subjects will be divided into 2 groups 2:1, active and sham tACS. 50 subjects will be in the active group, and 25 subjects in the sham group (specific numbers to be decided on later).

Conditions

• Schizophrenia

Interventions

DEVICE

Active tACS

Placement of stimuli electrodes will be: a) active electrode over the left DLPFC (F3), and b) reference electrode over the right parietal region (P2). The exact location of electrodes will be determined by the 10/20 EEG method with EEG cap. Subjects will have tACS sessions on consecutive days (weekends and holidays excluded). Each subject will have 10 active tACS sessions.The active tACS group will be stimulated with a 2 mA current for 20 minutes.

DEVICE

Sham tACS

Placement of stimuli electrodes will be: a) active electrode over the left DLPFC (F3), and b) reference electrode over the right parietal region (P2). The exact location of electrodes will be determined by the 10/20 EEG method with EEG cap. Subjects will have tACS sessions on consecutive days (weekends and holidays excluded). Each subject will have 10 sham tACS sessions.The sham tACS group will have stimulation lasting only 40 seconds though the electrodes will remain in place for 20 min.

DEVICE

Active boosting

Placement of stimuli electrodes will be: a) active electrode over the left DLPFC (F3), and b) reference electrode over the right parietal region (P2). The exact location of electrodes will be determined by the 10/20 EEG method with EEG cap. Subjects will have tACS sessions on consecutive days (weekends and holidays excluded).One month later after initial treatment, each subject will have 5 booster sessions of active tACS.The active boosting group will be stimulated with a 2 mA current for 20 minutes.

DEVICE

Sham boosting

Placement of stimuli electrodes will be: a) active electrode over the left DLPFC (F3), and b) reference electrode over the right parietal region (P2). The exact location of electrodes will be determined by the 10/20 EEG method with EEG cap. Subjects will have tACS sessions on consecutive days (weekends and holidays excluded).One month later after initial treatment, each subject will have 5 booster sessions of sham tACS.The sham boosting group will have stimulation lasting only 40 seconds though the electrodes will remain in place for 20 min.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Shanghai Mental Health Center

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Chunbo Li, Ph.D. · Shanghai Mental Health Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

QUADRUPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-11-30

Primary Completion

2019-12-31

Completion

2020-03-31

Countries

• China

Study Locations