US University studies a Medial-prefrontal Enhancement During Schizophrenia Systems Imaging

The University of California, San Francisco is enrolling patients into the clinical trial investigating Medial-prefrontal Enhancement During Schizophrenia Systems Imaging (MESSI).

This trial in healthy controls (HC) and patients with schizophrenia (SZ) aims to examine;

  • the underlying cognitive and neural cause of self-agency deficits in SZ;
  • the responsiveness to a novel navigated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (nrTMS) target in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC);
  • how modulation of mPFC activity impacts the larger self-agency network to mediate changes in self-agency judgments.

The overall hypothesis is that increased mPFC excitability by active high-frequency nrTMS in HC and SZ will induce behavioral improvements in self-agency and neural changes in the larger self-agency network that will generalize to improvements in overall cognition, symptoms and daily functioning, and will likely lead to the development of new effective neuromodulation therapies in patients with schizophrenia.

The trial is designed to enroll male and female 18 to 60 years and is being conducted in the UCSF, San Francisco, California, United States.

The patients that can be enrolled into this study include the population:

All Participants:

  • Good general physical health
  • English is first language
  • No neurological disorder
  • Meets MRI criteria
  • No current alcohol or substance use disorder

Schizophrenia participants:

  • Schizophrenia diagnosis of any illness duration
  • Clinical stability, defined as 12 weeks outpatient status and 4 weeks low to moderate dose of antipsychotic medication (<1000 mg. chlorpromazine equivalents), plus stable doses of all other psychotropic medications

The study start date is November 12, 2020.

Among the excluding conditions appear:

  • Implanted metallic parts of implanted electronic devices
  • Pregnant or trying to become pregnant
  • Any condition that would prevent the subject from giving voluntary informed consent
  • Scalp wounds or infections
  • Claustrophobia precluding MRI
  • Ongoing seizures
  • Neurological disorder

This page provides a more detailed overview of this clinical trial: https://ichgcp.net/clinical-trials-registry/NCT04807530

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