NCT02091284

Bilateral Prefrontal Modulation in Alcoholism

Prefrontal Modulation by Repetitive Bilateral Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in Alcoholic Inpatients

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 49 (actual)
• Sponsor: Federal University of Espirito Santo · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

In this study, eligible alcoholic inpatients recruited from a specialized clinic for addiction treatment, filling inclusion criteria and not showing any exclusion criteria, were randomized to receive the repetitive (10 sessions, every other day) bilateral dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (dlPFC: cathodal left / anodal right) tDCS (2 milliamperes, 5 x 7 cm2, for 20 min) or placebo (sham-tDCS). Craving to the use of alcohol was examined before (baseline), during and after the end of the tDCS treatment. Based in our previous data, our hypothesis was that repetitive bilateral tDCS over dlPFC would favorably change craving in alcoholism and this would be a long-lasting effect.

Detailed description

Before (baseline) and after tDCS or sham-tDCS treatment, subjects were clinically examined regarding craving (obsessive compulsive drinking scale) and they were followed-up for relapses at least 3 months after treatment.

Conditions

• Drug Addiction
• Executive Dysfunction

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	transcranial Direct Current Stimulation	Direct currents were transferred via a pair of carbonated-silicone electrodes (35 cm2) with a thick layer of high conductive gel for EEG underneath them. The electric current will be delivered by an electric stimulator. To stimulate the left DLPFC, the cathode electrode was placed over F3 according to the 10-20 international system while the anode was placed over the contralateral F4 region. The currents flowed continuously for 20 minutes with an intensity of 2 milliamperes.

Timeline

• Start date: 2013-11-01
• Primary completion: 2018-07-03
• Completion: 2018-07-03
• First posted: 2014-03-19
• Last updated: 2019-08-08
• Results posted: 2019-06-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Brazil