NCT01404039

Investigating Motor Cortex Processing for Pain Modulation

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 115 (actual)
• Sponsor: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: Male
• Age: 18 Years – 64 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of different types of interventions (motor learning, somatosensory learning, observation task, mental imagery and tDCS) on the perception of pain and motor cortex excitability in healthy male subjects. This is an exploratory study of healthy subjects only.

Detailed description

There are 5 experiments: Exp1: motor learning (3 groups, crossover) - motor leaning with and without visual feedback and a control group. Exp2: sensory learning (4 groups, parallel) - sensory learning with and without feedback, an simple activation task and a control group. Exp3: observational task (2 groups, parallel) - an motor observational task and a control group. Exp4: mental imagery (2 groups, parallel) - a motor mental imagery and a control group. Exp5: tDCS over the motor cortex (2 groups, crossover) - active and sham tDCS. Note that this study has never been completed.

Conditions

• Motor Activity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Motor Learning	Subject will have to draw a set of shapes and words during 20 minutes.
BEHAVIORAL	Somatosensory Learning	Subjects will perform a learning task involving sensory activation of the hand. The task will consist of learning letters of Braille.
BEHAVIORAL	Observational Task	Subjects will watch a 10 second video of a right-handed person performing movements of their left index finger. Subjects will be instructed to watch the video without any other specific instruction.
BEHAVIORAL	Mental Imagery	Subjects will be asked to perform mental imagery of motor practice - finger movements of the left hand for 10 minutes.
DEVICE	transcranial direct current stimulation	Subjects will undergo active and sham tDCS stimulation in a randomized and counterbalanced order. During both active and sham stimulation, we will use electrodes of 35cm\^2, intensity of 2mA for a duration of 20 minutes. The anode electrode will be placed over the right primary motor cortex (M1) and the cathode will be placed over the contralateral supraorbital area. For active stimulation, the current will be on for the duration of 20 minutes. For sham stimulation, the current will ramp up, and then down again for 30 seconds to simulate the sensation of active tDCS.

Timeline

• Start date: 2010-09-01
• Primary completion: 2014-04-01
• Completion: 2014-04-01
• First posted: 2011-07-27
• Last updated: 2020-04-24
• Results posted: 2017-03-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States