NCT03178903

tDCS for Increasing Exercise Adherence in Depressed Individuals

tDCS for Increasing Exercise Adherence in Individuals With Elevated Depressive Symptoms

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 51 (actual)
• Sponsor: Butler Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) for increasing exercise adherence among low active individuals with elevated depressive symptoms. The investigators expect that this project will contribute much needed knowledge about the role that tDCS can play in changing the affective experience of exercise.

Detailed description

Exercise adherence is a significant public health problem. Affective experiences during exercise predict long-term physical activity (PA) levels. Therefore, approaches to improving the affective experience of exercise are both important and likely to have high impact. This may be particularly true among individuals with elevated depressive symptoms due to their tendency toward more negative and less positive affect. tDCS is a noninvasive brain stimulation approach with a growing body of literature supporting its effects on cognitive and emotional processing in varied populations, including some support for those with depression. In addition, there is recent increased interest in utilizing tDCS in the context of exercise (see above) and in obesity prevention. While the effects of tDCS on behavioral and cognitive functioning are still developing, promising findings have emerged for tDCS used in repeated combination with a behavioral or cognitive intervention. Given that tDCS is relatively safe, inexpensive, and portable, individuals who struggle with enjoying exercise could be afforded a practical option for increasing and maintaining physical activity levels. We propose to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial of tDCS versus sham delivered 3x/week for 8 weeks in the context of a supervised aerobic exercise (AE) program among 72 low-active individuals with elevated depressive symptoms. Follow-up assessments will be conducted at end of treatment, 3, and 6 months.

Conditions

• Depression
• Physical Activity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	tDCS	Participants in transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) will receive tDCS over the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes, 3 times per week for 8 weeks.
OTHER	Sham tDCS	Participants in sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) will receive shame tDCS over the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes, 3 times per week for 8 weeks.
BEHAVIORAL	Aerobic Exercise (AE)	Participants will engage in supervised, 30-minute bouts of moderate-intensity exercise 3x/week for 8 weeks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-02-01
• Primary completion: 2019-12-31
• Completion: 2019-12-31
• First posted: 2017-06-07
• Last updated: 2023-02-27
• Results posted: 2023-02-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States