Developing Brain Imaging Analysis Expertise for Personalizing Transcranial Electric Stimulation in Anhedonia Treatment of Patients with Bipolar Depression

The University of Texas System (UT)

Status

Enrolling

Conditions

Anhedonia

Treatments

Device: sham tDCS

Device: active tDCS

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT05240352

HSC-MS-21-1044

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) will engage reward-related brain circuitry, more specifically the uncinate fasciculus (UF) tract, which connects the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) regions. Also to evaluate whether the changes in the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the UF tract are associated with changes of clinical symptoms of anhedonia and finally to investigate the moderation role of simulated electric fields (EFs) in an association between FA of the UF and symptoms of anhedonia.

Enrollment

45 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 50 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and clinically significant anhedonia
mild symptoms of depression

Exclusion criteria

substance abuse/dependence and any use of drugs (except alcohol or nicotine) in the previous month of the baseline assessment
participants with personality disorder that would interfere with study participation according to clinical judgment
previous neurological conditions (epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, etc)
any severe, life-threatening non-psychiatric medical condition
specific contraindications for tDCS (metallic plates in the head)
Participants identified as acutely suicidal or severely agitated