NCT05487911

Cortical rTMS as a Treatment for Depression

ENROLLING BY INVITATION NA Last updated 4 June 2024

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Major Depressive Disorder in 50 participants. Enrolling by invitation.

Timeline

1 August 2024

Primary endpoint
4 August 2026

4 August 2027

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Baylor College of Medicine
Phase	NA
Status	ENROLLING BY INVITATION
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	na
Design	single group
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	50
Start date	1 August 2024
Primary completion	4 August 2026
Estimated completion	4 August 2027
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Conditions studied

• Major Depressive Disorder — all drugs for Major Depressive Disorder →

Sponsor

Baylor College of Medicine

Who can join

Adults 18 to 64, any sex, with Major Depressive Disorder. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability worldwide with a 19% lifetime prevalence in the United States. Dysfunctional reward processing (e.g., the loss of pleasure) is one of the core features of MDD. Common treatments of MDD include psychological therapies (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy), medication (e.g., bupropion, sertraline), and psychological therapies and medication combined, but they may not address the function of the reward circuit in MDD. These treatments often do not improve depressive symptoms in MDD patients who are classified as having treatment-resistant depression, and they may be unlikely to respond to further medication trials. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation that enables us to selectively excite or inhibit neural activity. Multiple TMS pulses given consecutively are known as repetitive TMS (rTMS), and the primary clinical location for applying rTMS is the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) for treatment of MDD. Many of these studies have shown that rTMS to the dlPFC may result in decreased depressive symptoms, but is only partially effective (response and remission rates of 41.2 and 35.3%, respectively). This evidence supports the importance of evaluating the efficacy of rTMS in other brain regions, such as the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), in the treatment of MDD rather than in the dlPFC.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial.