Behavioral and Neuronal Correlates of Human Mood States

May 19, 2026 updated by: Corey Keller, Stanford University
Optimizing treatments in mental health requires an easy to obtain, continuous, and objective measure of internal mood. Unfortunately, current standard-of-care clinical scales are sparsely sampled, subject to recency bias, underutilized, and are not validated for acute mood monitoring. The recent shift to remote care also requires novel methods to measure internal mood. Recent advances in computer vision have allowed the accurate quantification of observable speech patterns and facial representations. The continuous and objective nature of these audio-facial behavioral outputs also enable the study of their neural correlates. Here, the investigators hypothesize that video-derived audio-facial behaviors have discrete neural representations in the limbic network and can provide a critical set of reliable longitudinal estimates of mood at low cost across home and clinic settings.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

11

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
        • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age range between 18 and 65
  • Major depressive disorder (MDD) in a current major depressive episode diagnosed with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI)
  • No medical or surgical contraindication to electrode implantation
  • Patient capable of understanding the scope of our project or signing informed consent independently.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Diffuse epilepsy involving several lobes of the brain

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Active Direct electrical stimulation (DES)
Intracranial electrodes will be used for the delivery of invasive brain stimulation.
Device: Intracranial electrodes
Surgically-implanted intracranial electrodes.
Sham Comparator: Sham Direct electrical stimulation (DES)
Intracranial electrodes will be used for the delivery of invasive brain stimulation.
Device: Intracranial electrodes
Surgically-implanted intracranial electrodes.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Quantitative Audio-Facial Change
Time Frame: 5 minutes
Quantitative percent change in each audio-facial feature before and after direct electrical stimulation at each site.
5 minutes
Quantitative Mood Change
Time Frame: 5 minutes
Quantitative percent change in Immediate Mood Scaler (IMS) after direct electrical stimulation at each site compared to a baseline period before sham. The minimum score on the IMS is 7 and the maximum is 154, with lower scores reflecting more negative mood states.
5 minutes

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Correlation between Audio-Facial and Mood Change
Time Frame: 5 minutes
Quantitative audio facial changes will be compared to quantitative changes in mood at each site by means of correlation and binary comparisons.
5 minutes
Qualitative Mood Change
Time Frame: 5 minutes
Qualitative articulation of mood (participants freely articulate mood after direct electrical stimulation at each site) and speech transcripts will be analyzed for ratio of positive and negative valence words.
5 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Stanford University

Collaborators

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 1, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

November 7, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

November 7, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 16, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 4, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

December 7, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 22, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 19, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 11354-2
  • 1R21MH134172 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

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

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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