A Preliminary Investigation of Pre-Frontal Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) for the Treatment of Cannabis Use Disorder

This investigation will preliminarily determine if a course of high-frequency rTMS applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, will reduce behavioral craving, and fMRI cue-reactivity in treatment-seeking cannabis use disordered participants.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cannabis Use Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: Active rTMS; Device: Sham rTMS

Detailed Description

The overarching goal of this proposal is to investigate if a course of excitatory DLPFC rTMS results in reduced cannabis behavioral craving in treatment-seeking individuals with CUD (Aim1). Additionally, the investigators seek to explore the mechanistic underpinnings of any observed effect, by collecting functional magnetic resonance imaging data during cannabis cue administration before and after the treatment course (Aim 2). These aims will be addressed through a nine-week, double-blind, randomized, sham-controlled study in which 72 treatment-seeking cannabis use disordered participants (36/group) will be given 20 sessions of either Active or Sham excitatory rTMS applied to the DLPFC. rTMS will be delivered over five weeks (2 sessions each day, two days each week). rTMS will be applied in conjunction with a validated three-session Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) behavioral intervention.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 72
• Phase: Phase 2

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304
      • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 60 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Participants must be able to provide informed consent and function at an intellectual level sufficient to allow accurate completion of all assessment instruments.
2. Participants must be between the ages of 18 and 60.
3. Participants must meet DSM-5 criteria for at least moderate Cannabis Use Disorder, with use of at least 20 out of the last 28 days.
4. Participants must express a desire to quit cannabis.
5. Participants must have a Positive UDS for cannabis during their baseline visit (confirming they are regular users).

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Participants must not be pregnant or breastfeeding.
2. Participants must not meet moderate or severe use disorder of any other substance with the exception of Nicotine Use Disorder.
3. Participants must not be on any medications that have central nervous system effects.
4. Participants must not have a history of/or current psychotic disorder or bipolar disorder.
5. Participants must not have any other Axis I condition requiring current treatment and must have a HRSD24 ≤10 indicating no clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
6. Participants must not have a history of Dementia or other cognitive impairment.
7. Participants must not have active suicidal ideation, or a suicide attempt within the past 90 days.
8. Participants must not have any contraindications to receiving rTMS (e.g. metal implanted above the head, history of seizure, any known brain lesion).
9. Participants must not have any unstable general medical conditions.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Quadruple

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Active rTMS; 10 Hz rTMS applied to the left DLPFC	Device: Active rTMS; rTMS will be delivered via a MagPro double blinded rTMS Research System (MagVenture, Denmark) with a Cool-B65 Butterfly Coil (a combined active and sham coil). We will use a standard resting motor threshold (rMT) determination to determine the TMS dose. Study-treatment will be delivered at 120% rMT. Each active rTMS study-treatment will consist of a total of 4000 pulses of 10Hz stimulation (5s-on,10s-off). Study-treatments will be delivered at the EEG coordinate for F3 (which approximates the left DLPFC), and will be found using the Beam-F3 method.
Sham Comparator: Sham rTMS; Sham rTMS applied to the left DLPFC	Device: Sham rTMS; Sham sessions will be delivered using an electronic sham system consisting of a coil that mimics the appearance and sound of rTMS, combined with a TENS device which produces a small electric shock mimicking the feeling of active rTMS. This type of sham has been demonstrated to be indistinguishable from active rTMS.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Marijuana Craving Questionnaire-Short Form Score as a Measure of Behavioral Craving	The investigators hypothesize that as compared to those participants receiving sham rTMS, those participants receiving active rTMS will have a reduced level of behavioral cannabis craving prior to their final rTMS session as compared to prior to their first rTMS session. The investigators will measure behavioral cannabis craving using the marijuana craving questionnaire. Score range: 12 to 84, higher scores represent more craving.	Baseline (pre) and Week-5 (post)
Cue Reactivity	The investigators hypothesize that as compared to those participants receiving sham rTMS, those participants receiving active rTMS will have a reduced BOLD response in reward structures (dorsal striatum, ventral striatum, and anterior consulate cortex) during a validated cue-reactivity fMRI paradigm prior to their final rTMS session as compared to prior to their first rTMS session (change score). The following beta scores represent the change score (post-pre) in scans in the drug stimuli minus neutral stimuli subtraction map. Generally, more activation (a positive score) represents more cannabis image cue-reactivity, and the reported range represents standard units as output in the fMRI.	Baseline (pre) and Week-5 (post)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Abstinence	Number of weeks (out of a total of 4 possible), in the follow-up period, where participants were abstinent from cannabis. Missing data was conservatively assumed to be non-abstinant. More weeks of abstinence is more favourable	4-weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Collaborators: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Gregory Sahlem, MD, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 1, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 30, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): July 30, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 4, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 5, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): May 8, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 9, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 7, 2023
• Last Verified: August 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Marijuana Abuse
• Other Study ID Numbers: 56294; K23DA043628 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: Yes
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No