NCT03608215

Neuromodulatary Efficacy of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Severe Refractory Primary Dysmenorrhea

Neuromodulation Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Severe Refractory Primary Dysmenorrhea: BDNF and MEG Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 31 (actual)
• Sponsor: Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan · Other Government
• Sex: Female
• Age: 20 Years – 35 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Primary Dysmenorrhea (PDM), defined as menstrual pain without discernable organic causes, is inexorably common in adolescent women, about 40-90% of women may suffer from it, and 20% of them can be severe in the context of being refractory to medication, daily function impairment, and having pain of severe degree. Novel therapeutic method is in need for pain alleviation for this particular phenotype. It has been reported that PDM females may engage motor-cortex based descending pain modulation system in our resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) and thermal pain-activation fMRI studies. Based on the reported analgesic efficacy of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on the motor cortex for various experimental painful conditions and clinical pain disorders, it is plausible that tDCS can be effective for the severe and medication-refractory PDM patients. This study aim to investigate the analgesic efficacy of tDCS in severe PDMs and to elucidate the dynamic brain neuroplasticity in the context of experimental pain after tDCS intervention. Thirty severe PDMs will be recruited and randomly allocated to either real or sham group in a triple-blind manner. Experimental pain electrical stimulation will be performed before and after the tDCS intervention. The experimental pain-evoked magnetoencephamographic (MEG) data will be correlated with behavioral and psychological measurements. This is the first study in the literature investigating the tDCS efficacy for acute pain in severe PDM. The result can promise a new possibility for clinical application.

Conditions

• Primary Dysmenorrhea

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Active tDCS	The anode and cathode sponge electrode (51 cm2) will be placed over C3 and FP2 (10-20 system) respectively. 2 mA current will be applied continuously for 20 minutes.
DEVICE	Sham tDCS	The anode and cathode sponge electrode (51 cm2) will be placed over C3 and FP2 (10-20 system) respectively. 2 mA current will be applied for 30 seconds at the beginning.

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-09-08
• Primary completion: 2018-12-31
• Completion: 2018-12-31
• First posted: 2018-07-31
• Last updated: 2019-02-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Taiwan