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Feasibility Electrical Stimulation Study for Visual Hallucinations

NCT04870710 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 6

Last updated 2025-06-12

Study results available
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Summary

The visual system has increasingly been recognized as an important site of injury in patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses. Visual system alterations manifest as visual perceptual aberrations, deficits in visual processing, and visual hallucinations. These visual symptoms are associated with worse symptoms, poorer outcome and resistance to treatment. A recent study using brain lesion mapping of visual hallucinations and identified a causal location in the part of the brain that processes visual information (visual cortex). The association between visual cortex activation and visual hallucinations suggests that this region could be targeted using noninvasive brain stimulation. Two case studies have found that brain stimulation to the visual cortex improved visual hallucinations in treatment resistant patients with psychosis. While promising it is unclear whether these symptom reductions resulted from activity changes in the visual cortex or not. Here we aim to answer the question whether noninvasive brain stimulation when optimally targeted to the visual cortex can improve brain activity, visual processing and visual hallucinations. The knowledge gained from this study will contribute to the field of vision by providing a marker for clinical response and by personalizing treatment for patients with psychosis suffering from visual symptoms. This grant will allow us to set the foundation for a larger more targeted study utilizing noninvasive brain stimulation to improve visual symptoms in patients with psychosis.

Conditions

Interventions

DEVICE

transcranial electrical stimulation

Electrical stimulation to the extrastriate visual cortex.

Sponsors & Collaborators

Principal Investigators

  • Paulo Lizano, MD,PhD · Staff Physician/Scientist

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

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

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2020-10-01
Primary Completion
2022-01-01
Completion
2022-01-02
FDA Device
Yes

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Diseases
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 NCT04870710 on ClinicalTrials.gov