Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Conditions

• Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder

Eligibility Criteria

Sex

ALL

Age

18 Years - 60 Years

Healthy Volunteers

Not accepted

Interventions

• TMS — DEVICE
  A wire coil is held on the scalp. Brief electrical currents are passed through the coil and create one or more magnetic pulses that stimulate the brain. For each TMS session, bursts of 3 pulses at 50 Hz are repeated at 5 Hz as a train for 2seconds. The inter-train interval is 8 seconds. There are 20 trains lasting 192 seconds (600pulses) per session. The intensity of TMS stimulations is set to 80-120% of resting motor threshold(RMT).
• sham — DEVICE
  Participants will receive total of 2 s of theta burst sham stimulation (TBS) trains repeated every 10 s for a total of 20 cycles (600 pulses). No actual magnetic stimulation will occur, still participant hears the TMS sound and a skin sensation

Study Details

The purpose of this study is to determine if repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) applied to angular gyrus (AG) will improve negative symptoms and/or other psychosis symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) patients compared with prefrontal cortex (PFC) or sham.

Key Dates

Start date

Mar 13, 2026

Status verified

Mar 2026

Primary completion

Nov 30, 2030

Completion

Nov 30, 2030

Study Design

Enrollment

20 participants (estimated)

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Arms

• Experimental: AG TMS
• Sham Comparator: PFC sham
• Sham Comparator: AG Sham
• Active Comparator: PFC TMS

Primary Outcome Measure

Change in blood-brain barrier (BBB) water exchange rate at AG obtained from MRI scan [ Time Frame: baseline (before treatment visit 1), midpoint (after treatment visit 10; about 2 weeks from baseline), and end of acute treatment (after treatment visit 20; about 4 weeks from baseline) ]

Central Contacts

• Xiaoming Du, PhD
  443-882-9717
  [email protected]
• Keiko Kunitoki
  (713) 486-2700
  [email protected]

Locations (1)

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