NCT07197502

Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder With rTMS

CLINICAL TRIAL: Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder by Targeting Ventrolateral Prefrontal-amygdala Circuit With Network-based Neuronavigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This project studies the effectiveness of brain stimulation on borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms. This study is blinded, randomized and will enroll up to 30 participants. Participant will be consented for the study remotely via a secure internet platform called Zoom. Participants will undergo up to 2 MRI scans, 2 brain wave recording sessions and up to 30 brain stimulation treatments, and complete symptom assessments and cognitive behavioral tasks on a computer. Participation requires minimum of 17 in person visits over the course of 2.5 months. Participants are randomly assigned active or sham brain stimulation. Participants who received sham brain stimulation have the option to receive additional 15 active brain stimulation session.

Detailed description

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious and pervasive psychiatric condition with a prevalence of 1-5% among the general population. Two core symptoms of BPD are dysfunctional emotion regulation and marked impulsivity resulting in severe psychological suffering in terms of depression and anxiety as well as maladaptive impulsive acts, particularly self-harming behaviors including suicide. Recent advances in affective neuroscience of BPD combined with progress in brain imaging and neuromodulation technologies have opened new avenues for the development of innovative, brain-based, and more effective treatments for BPD. This project aims to test the efficacy of a novel circuit-based treatment for BPD. The investigators will utilize multimodal neuroimaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and electroencephalogram (EEG) and BPD-, depression- and anxiety-related clinical scales to objectively measure the impact of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment on overall BPD as well as depressive and anxiety symptom severity. Furthermore, a battery of cognitive tasks will be used to specifically measure the effect of TMS on the neurobehavioral indicators of impulsivity and emotion regulation.

Conditions

• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Borderline Personality
• BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)	Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression. Using pulsed magnetic fields, transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy stimulates the part of the brain thought to be involved with mood regulation. These magnetic fields do not directly affect the whole brain; they only reach about 2-3 centimeters into the brain directly beneath the treatment coil.As these magnetic fields move into the brain, they produce very small electrical currents. These electrical currents activate cells within the brain, causing them to rewire, a process called neuroplasticity.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-03-01
• Primary completion: 2027-12-31
• Completion: 2027-12-31
• First posted: 2025-09-29
• Last updated: 2025-10-29

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated device study