NCT00973622

Changing Thought and Action in Tobacco Dependence With Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 66 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Arkansas · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 19 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study will examine the effects of high frequency, repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) on decision-making and smoking behavior.

Detailed description

Tobacco use is the greatest cause of preventable death in the US and cigarette smokers exhibit substantial relapse following treatment. Understanding the brain mechanisms involved in tobacco dependence is an important step toward reducing the high rate of relapse associated with current behavioral and pharmacological treatments for smoking cessation. This study seeks to examine the effects of high frequency, repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) on decision-making and smoking behavior. A concept central to this study is that "quitting" tobacco necessitates making conscious choices not to smoke (to delay gratification) and these choices are influenced by the balance of activity between the frontal-parietal systems that process the value of rewards and limbic systems that are involved with immediate gratification. We aim to: 1) determine how two different levels of cortical excitation (10 Hz and 20Hz), induced by different rTMS frequencies, influence reward and risk-taking choices and cigarette consumption. Additionally, we aim to 2) determine how limbic activation due to acute nicotine withdrawal and/or satiation modifies the effects in aim 1. Twenty non-smoking and 20 smoking participants will receive two levels of high frequency rTMS and comparable sham stimulation (using electrical scalp stimulation) delivered over the left prefrontal cortex. Smokers will also crossover between nicotine satiation and acute withdrawal conditions to determine how rTMS interacts with limbic activation associated with nicotine use and withdrawal. In addition, changes in preattentional (brainstem-thalamus processing as measured using the P50 midlatency auditory evoked potential) and attentional (thalamocortical processing as measured using the Psychomotor Vigilance Task; PVT) will be assessed before and after treatment to quantitatively determine changes in preattentional/arousal and attentional function.

Conditions

• Tobacco Dependence

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) 10 Hertz (Hz)	All participants will receive 90 10-pulse trains of 1 sec duration with an interval of 20 seconds. Smokers will receive the treatment twice, once in a nicotine-satiated condition, and once in a nicotine-withdrawal condition.
DEVICE	repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) 20Hz	All participants will receive 45 20-pulse trains of 1 second duration with an interval of 20 seconds. Smokers will receive the treatment twice, once in a nicotine-satiated condition, and once in a nicotine-withdrawal condition.
DEVICE	SHAM repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)	The look and sound of active rTMS is reproduced with the same coil used in the active conditions. The magnetic field in the sham coil is markedly attenuated at only 5% of stimulator output. The feel of active stimulation will be reproduced by delivering monophasic current pulses to the left, frontalis muscle with a Isolated Stimulator and two carbon rubber electrodes. Smokers will receive Sham rTMS in both the nicotine-satiated and nicotine-withdrawal conditions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2009-10-01
• Primary completion: 2012-01-01
• Completion: 2012-01-01
• First posted: 2009-09-09
• Last updated: 2013-09-24
• Results posted: 2013-09-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States