NCT04527302

Efficacy of Augmentation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Concurrent With Exposure-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Shanghai Mental Health Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and clinical outcome of the Exposure-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) concurrent with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, and explores the potential neural mechanisms of treatment effect by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG).

Detailed description

The current study aims to evaluate feasibility and clinical outcome of exposure-based CBT（ERP）combined with tDCS over the prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in treatment of OCD patients. 60 OCD patients whose symptom were mainly associated with "contamination/clean" will be randomized into two groups (i.e. ERP+active tDCS or ERP+sham tDCS stimulation). Over a two-month period, all patients are received 10 sessions of individual CBT, including 8 sessions of concurrent tDCS with ERP (tDCS+ERP). Three independent evaluators will rate the severity of patients' obsessive-compulsive symptoms using Y-BOCS at four assessment points: baseline (prior to the treatment), after the first (session 2#), fourth (session 5#), and eighth treatment of tDCS+ERP (session 10#). The patients will also receive MRI scan and EEG. The current study aims to explore whether the administration of online tDCS together with ERP (tDCS+ERP) will improve the efficacy of ERP and tries to provide some early evidience that reveal potential neural mechanisms of the treatment.

Conditions

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
COMBINATION_PRODUCT	ERP combined with high-definition active tDCS	The active tDCS +ERP referred to a period of tDCS applied in the first 20 minutes of the ERP treatment (the tDCS device was activated when ERP began and deactivated automatically while ERP continued). The total treatment phase lasted eight weeks and included ten sessions with experienced psychotherapists following a specific manual for the tDCS+ERP treatment. The tDCS device will deliver a direct current of 1.5mA during 20 minutes. Anode electrode will be localized in front of the mPFC on the FpZ point according to the EEG international reference. Four cathode electrodes will be placed around (i.e. AF7, AF8, F3, F4).
COMBINATION_PRODUCT	ERP combined with sham tDCS	Patients will get the same CBT setting as the active tDCS group and they were applied the sham tDCS cocurrently with ERP. The sham tDCS device is the same as the active comparator's except that the sham tDCS will only deliver a current stimulation for the first and last 15 seconds in order to produce somatic sensation in patients similar to that induced by the active tDCS.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-10-26
• Primary completion: 2024-06-30
• Completion: 2024-08-30
• First posted: 2020-08-26
• Last updated: 2024-04-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: China