Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for Schizophrenia

N/A

Waitlist Available

Led By Philip R Corlett, PhD

Research Sponsored by Yale University

Eligibility Criteria Checklist

Specific guidelines that determine who can or cannot participate in a clinical trial

Must have

Be between 18 and 65 years old

Timeline

Screening 3 weeks

Treatment Varies

Follow Up approximately 13 months

Awards & highlights

No Placebo-Only Group

Summary

This trial uses TMS, a procedure that stimulates brain cells with magnetic fields, to help patients with psychosis who have persistent auditory hallucinations. The goal is to see if TMS can reduce these hallucinations by changing brain activity. TMS has shown potential in reducing auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

Eligible Conditions

Schizophrenia
Schizoaffective Disorder
Auditory Hallucinations

Timeline

Screening ~ 3 weeks3 visits

Treatment ~ Varies

Follow Up ~ approximately 13 months

Screening ~ 3 weeks

Treatment ~ Varies

Follow Up ~approximately 13 months

This trial's timeline: 3 weeks for screening, Varies for treatment, and approximately 13 months for reporting.

Treatment Details

Study Objectives

Study objectives can provide a clearer picture of what you can expect from a treatment.

Primary study objectives

Conditioned Hallucinations Task Performance

Awards & Highlights

No Placebo-Only Group

All patients enrolled in this study will receive some form of active treatment.

Trial Design

2Treatment groups

Active Control

Group I: TMS to cerebellumActive Control1 Intervention

This study will recruit a further 70 clinical voice hearers. Again, they will complete parallel forms of the conditioned hallucinations task on two occasions, separated by a week. They will receive excitatory TMS over the cerebellum (and sham on the other occasion, in a randomized counterbalanced order). Hypotheses: Exciting the cerebellum will increase belief-updating. If poor belief-updating contributes to conditioned hallucinations, increasing cerebellum engagement should decrease conditioned hallucinations and alter the belief-updating model parameter compared with sham TMS.

Group II: TMS to insulaActive Control1 Intervention

This study will recruit 30 clinical voice hearers (P+H+). They will complete two parallel forms of the conditioned hallucinations task (with different visual and auditory stimuli) on two occasions, separated by a week. TMS and sham will be delivered in a randomized counterbalanced order. Hypothesis: Inhibiting the insula will decrease prior over-weighting. If this computational perturbation is responsible for conditioned hallucinations, then ameliorating it with TMS that increases insula engagement will decrease conditioned hallucination responses. Furthermore, the prior weighting parameter will be reduced following active TMS compared with sham.

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