NCT04088578

VNS-supplemented Motor Retraining After Stroke

Mechanisms of Non-invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation Underlying Enhanced Motor Control in Humans

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 26 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pittsburgh · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 75 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The goal of this study is to learn more about the connections between the brain, spinal cord, and muscles and how these connections can be strengthened after neurological injury.

Detailed description

To establish a link between the physiological mechanisms driving enhanced motor control in response to VNS, subjects will undergo progressive training on a visuomotor task that requires fine gradation of voluntary motor output to control a moving object through target boundaries. In separate groups, VNS or sham stimulation will be paired with movement when a minimal time-on-target (ToT) is achieved.

Conditions

• Stroke, Acute

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Training	Controlling movement of an object on computer screen by adjusting muscle activity.
OTHER	Vagus Nerve Stimulation	Recruits the auricular branch of the vagus nerve which activates brain structures that release chemicals mediating cortical plasticity.
OTHER	Sham Stimulation	Sub-threshold stimulation that does not activate neural structures.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-09-22
• Primary completion: 2021-11-09
• Completion: 2021-11-09
• First posted: 2019-09-13
• Last updated: 2022-11-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States