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About
Decision-making is an important process that is frequently shown to be impaired in patients with depression. While a number of preclinical and clinical studies have identified key regions involved in this process, it remains unclear exactly how these regions are influencing choice behavior especially when choices become more challenging. The goal of this project is to understand how these regions, such as the cingulate cortex, impact difficult choice behavior. Specifically, the researchers are interested in learning how disruptions in cognitive control might impact choice preferences during difficult decisions in depressed patients. To do this, this study will recruit participants with depression (as well as healthy controls) to perform game-like tasks in the laboratory while undergoing TMS or TI.
Full description
In recent years, countless studies have employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other imaging modalities to both discover and track activity in brain regions involved in performance or behavior in a wide range of tasks. Running in parallel, research involving neuromodulation has afforded researchers the opportunity to test the impact of direct stimulation on areas hypothesized to be involved in certain processes or behaviors. Among such technologies are transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and temporal interference (TI).
TMS and TI can be performed during any sort of cognitive or behavioral task to estimate an effect of the stimulated brain area; as such, TMS and TI have an exciting array of potential applications in research. One area, for example, is cost-benefit decision-making. Because of the potential biases associated with self-report measures-including simple recall errors, misinterpretations of the item, and social-conformity pressures-a number of psychological laboratories have advocated for the use of decision-making tasks as an alternative means of assessing motivation and reward-related symptoms. Such tasks ask individuals to chose how much they are willing to work, wait or risk in order to win various rewards. These measures have been used in a variety of behavioral and neuroimaging studies and in different clinical populations.
This study will use TMS or TI in combination with a series of behavioral tasks to probe the relationship between areas known or hypothesized to be involved in cognition and/or cost-benefit decision-making, and performance on these tasks. The aim of this study is to understand the effect of TMS or TI stimulation of certain brain areas on performance in a series of cognition- and decision-based behavioral tasks. To do so, the researchers will stimulate areas of the cortex hypothesized to be selectively engaged with cognition of a given category, or cost-benefit decision-making (depending on the behavioral tasks used). This study will examine healthy controls and depressed patients to investigate these effects. Such an aim will not only provide a deeper understanding of decision-making for basic research but will also hopefully inform understanding when decision-making is altered as in psychiatric populations.
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Additional Exclusion Criteria for Optional Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)Component for Subject Safety
Additional Exclusion Criteria for Optional Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)Component for Data Quality
Additional Exclusion Criteria for Participants with Major Depressive Disorder:
Anything above minimal risk for suicide, as assessed during the clinical interview (SCID) at screening and the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS)
A symptom severity score of at least 11, as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II
History or current diagnosis of any of the following Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV psychiatric illnesses:
Absence of any psychotropic medications for at least 2 weeks. No patient will be asked to discontinue or otherwise interrupt any psychotropic medications to participate in this study. The listed "washout" periods are only applicable for patients who previously used psychotropic medications, but recently decided to discontinue their use for some other reason.
Additional Exclusion Criteria for Healthy Controls:
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300 participants in 2 patient groups
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Central trial contact
Michael Treadway, PhD
Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov
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