Adults 50 to 88, any sex, with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer's Disease. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.
Results — posted to ClinicalTrials.gov
Per-arm endpoint measurements with 95% confidence intervals where reported. Source: trial results section.
Accuracy in Centimeters From Target Location for AllocentricPrimary· Outcome assessed after each of 2 sessions (estimated within 1 week of each other)
1 active tDCS; 1 sham tDCS for each measure. Participants touched a screen (using a ELO 19" touchscreen monitor) to document the location of the landmark. The distance between the actual vs. selected location served as the dependent measure.
Group
Value
95% CI
Cognitively Intact ACTIVE tDCS
13.24
± 3.96
MCI ACTIVE tDCS
15.38
± 2.13
Cognitively Intact SHAM tDCS
14.22
± 2.78
MCI SHAM tDCS
15.03
± 1.77
Hippocampal BOLD Signal During Task-based fMRIPrimary· change between active and sham tDCS sessions (<1month)
BOLD signal change comparing active to sham tDCS during Allocentric navigation (i.e., active HD-tDCS \> sham HD-tDCS). Activation maps thresholded at p\<.01 with minimum cluster size of 5 voxels.
Group
Value
95% CI
MCI ACTIVE tDCS
.089
± .12
MCI Sham HD-tDCS
.037
± .123
Cognitively Intact ACTIVE HD-tDCS
.143
± .134
Cognitively Intact Sham HD-tDCS
.107
± .117
Dorsal Attention Network Connectivity During Resting-state fMRIPrimary· change between active and sham tDCS sessions (<1month)
Change in resting state functional connectivity strength between active and sham tDCS sessions. Strength is measured by Pearson r correlations between nodes, which are z-transformed, and summated.
Group
Value
95% CI
Cognitively Intact ACTIVE tDCS
29.41
± 7.09
MCI ACTIVE HD-tDCS
30.93
± 11.97
Cognitively Intact SHAM HD-tDCS
30.39
± 8.2
MCI SHAM HD-tDCS
31.47
± 9.89
EgocentricPrimary· Outcome assessed after each of the 2 sessions
Number of turns correctly recalled for each egocentric environment
Group
Value
95% CI
Cognitively Intact ACTIVE tDCS
9.05
± 3.53
MCI ACTIVE tDCS
8.21
± 3.08
Cognitively Intact SHAM tDCS
9.85
± 3.6
MCI SHAM tDCS
7.47
± 2.53
Adverse events — posted to ClinicalTrials.gov
Time frame: duration of each participant's study related activities (~2 weeks), with monitoring ending following the second tDCS session.
Reporting threshold: 0%.
Adverse-event reports describe events observed during the trial — not all are caused by the drug.
Remembering how to travel from one location to another is critical in everyday life, yet this vital ability declines with normal aging and can be further affected by conditions that disproportionately affect the elderly, such as vision loss or progressive dementia. Human and animal research has shown that two distinct memory systems interact during navigation. The first, referred to as allocentric navigation, is very flexible and uses spatial knowledge of key features or landmarks to develop and use a mental map of the environment. This approach involves brain regions that are critical for new learning and memory but that decline with age. The second, referred to as egocentric navigation, is inflexible and relies on "habit" memories that link specific features with specific directions. This approach relies on brain regions that are critical for "automatic" responses and that are relatively unaffected by age.
The main problem is that allocentric navigation declines with age and is accompanied increased dependence on egocentric navigation. This change increases the risk of becoming disoriented or "lost" when traveling in unfamiliar areas or even when traveling new routes in familiar areas. Therefore, the main goal of this project is to examine whether non-invasive brain stimulation, specifically transcranial direct current stimulation, can improve allocentric navigation in healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment.
Participants will complete two functional magnetic resonance imaging sessions while learning new environments. Before one of these sessions, participants will receive active brain stimulation over the parietal cortex. Before the other session, participants will receive sham brain stimulation over the parietal cortex. The effects of this stimulation will be evaluated using both an allocentric and an egocentric memory test. Physiologic effects will be evaluated using both task-based and resting-state MRI.
Publications & conference data
6 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):
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Publications: Europe PMC API search by NCT ID, retrieved 10 June 2026
Drug + disease cross-links: matched in real time against Drug Landscape's normalised drug + company + condition tables
Sponsor: as reported to ClinicalTrials.gov by VA Office of Research and Development
Last refreshed: 31 August 2018
Drug Landscape aggregates and links these public records for informational use only. Always verify against the primary source before clinical or regulatory decisions. Canonical URL: https://druglandscape.com/trial/NCT01958437.