NCT06556043

Investigating the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Different Brain Regions on Ankle Tracking Motor Learning, Motor Adaptation, and Brain Connectivity in Healthy Middle-aged and Older Adults and Patients With Subcortical Stroke

Investigating the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to Different Brain Regions on Ankle Tracking Motor Learning, Motor Adaptation, and Brain Connectivity in Healthy Middle-aged and Older Adults and Patients With Subcortical Stroke

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 120 (estimated)
• Sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Ankle control is essential to safe over-ground navigation for humans. Middle- aged and older adults and patients with stroke whose ankle control is poor often lose their balance or fall. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an emerging non-invasive brain stimulation technology that has great potential to be applied to neurorehabilitation; however, the optimization of its applications still needs further studies. The aims of this project are to compare the effects of anodal tDCS (AtDCS) applied to the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to the moving leg (cM1), posterior parietal cortex (PPC) contralateral to the moving leg (cPPC), and cerebellar cortex (CBM) ipsilateral to the moving leg (iCBM) on motor learning, motor adaptation, and brain connectivity in healthy middle-aged and older adults and hemiparetic patients with chronic subcortical stroke.

Conditions

• Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
• Ankle
• Motor Learning
• Adaptation
• Brain Structure
• Brain Connectivity
• Stroke

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	cM1 transcranial direct current stimulation	During the 5-day skill acquisition phase, all participants will undertake a 20-minute session of learning a sequential ankle tracking task with their non-dominant (for healthy adults) or affected (for patients with stroke) foot each day, using a custom-built ankle tracking system. The cM1 group will receive AtDCS stimulation at 2 mA during acquisition phase.
OTHER	cPPC transcranial direct current stimulation	During the 5-day skill acquisition phase, all participants will undertake a 20-minute session of learning a sequential ankle tracking task with their non-dominant (for healthy adults) or affected (for patients with stroke) foot each day, using a custom-built ankle tracking system. The cPPC group will receive AtDCS stimulation at 2 mA during acquisition phase.
OTHER	iCBM transcranial direct current stimulation	During the 5-day skill acquisition phase, all participants will undertake a 20-minute session of learning a sequential ankle tracking task with their non-dominant (for healthy adults) or affected (for patients with stroke) foot each day, using a custom-built ankle tracking system. The iCBM group will receive AtDCS stimulation at 2 mA during acquisition phase.
OTHER	sham transcranial direct current stimulation	For the Sham group, the montages of the paired electrode placements will be randomly selected from the other three pairs using blocks of size 3, so that the three types of montages will have equal opportunities to be used in the Sham group. The intensity will be set at 0 mA for the Sham group. There will be a 30-second ramp-up for the Sham group. Once the current reaches 2 mA in the ramp-up period, it will drop to 0 mA for the entire 20 minutes during learning for the Sham group.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-07-09
• Primary completion: 2026-07-31
• Completion: 2026-07-31
• First posted: 2024-08-15
• Last updated: 2024-08-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Taiwan