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Oscillations in Reward-guided Behavior

NCT04761471 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 70

Last updated 2023-12-13

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

While people are reading, talking or playing computer games, their brain cells elicit electrical signals so they could perform these actions. The firing of these cells is not random but is organized in a temporal pattern, such that a group of cells are simultaneously active at a particular frequency. The researchers can read the frequency of brain signals and identify their location using different brain-imaging tools like EEG and fMRI. These methods are applied to healthy individuals and do not pose any danger.

The investigators of this project would like to use these techniques to study the brain signals, while healthy participants are making the decisions choosing between 2 rewards, e.g., 2 food items. Participants who have depression show different behavior while performing decision-making tasks and the investigation of processes that underlie them will lead to a better understanding of this disease.

Furthermore, there is another category of tools, which help to study the brain. This category includes electrical stimulation, which mimics the electrical pattern that brain cells elicit. Application of external electrical stimulation can enhance this pattern or disrupt it and this process will affect the behavior of a person. Recent investigations have led to the development of a new stimulation technique that allows targeting deep brain regions. The investigators of this project want to apply this method to change the performance of healthy participants in the tasks on decision-making. If this experiment is successful, then stimulation can be used as a therapy for participants with depression.

Conditions

  • Reward-guided Behaviour

Interventions

DEVICE

TI transcranial electrical stimulation

Participants will undergo transcranial electrical stimulation, which will be delivered with low current amplitudes (\<= 2 mA) established with international safety guidelines for electrical stimulation. Threshold for the current amplitude will be established by participants themselves, such that they cannot distinguish when stimulation is applied and not applied. Duration of stimulation will not last longer than 30 minutes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Rafael Polania, PhD · ETH Zürich

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
40 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-02-01
Primary Completion
2022-11-22
Completion
2023-12-04

Countries

  • Switzerland

Study Locations

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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 NCT04761471 on ClinicalTrials.gov