Using Electrophysiology to Index Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Effects on Reward System Functioning in Depression
San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Summary
Depression is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, conferring substantial healthcare and societal costs. By studying methods to non-invasively target neural circuitry involved in reward responsivity, information generated by this project will improve understanding of the circuit alterations that underlie motivation and pleasure deficits in depression, and could also lead to the development of biologically-based markers of neurostimulation-based treatment response.
Description
Rewards play a central role in driving behavior. Reward system dysfunctions are increasingly conceptualized as transdiagnostic phenomena, relevant to many psychopathologies. The opportunity to directly modulate reward processing through targeted intervention could have broad mechanistic and clinical value in psychiatry, both for disorders in which reward-responsive circuits are overactive or underactive. The overarching goal of this proposal focuses on one such opportunity in individuals with depression: the investigators will evaluate whether an electrophysiological measure of reward consumma…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–65 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
• Our studies require some in-person visits to our research lab, located at 42nd Ave and Clement St in San Francisco. Inclusion Criteria: * All participants * 18-65 years old * Normal (or corrected to normal) vision * Participants with MDD * Meet the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria for MDD * Screened for TMS and MRI safety * On a stable psychiatric medication regime for \> 1 month Exclusion Criteria (all participants): * Premorbid IQ estimate \< 70 * Past or present neurological problems (including seizures and head trauma resulting in neu…
Interventions
- DeviceTMS: single session intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) to dorsomedial prefrontal target in individuals with major depressive disorder, via MagVenture MagPro R30 device / Cool-DB80 A/P coil
Active Session: Single session of standard iTBS of 50Hz triplet bursts, 5 times each second with a 2 s on / 8 s off duty cycle for 600 pulses per hemisphere (1200 pulses total) will be applied for a total stimulation time of 6:40 minutes
- DeviceSHAM (inactive) TMS stimulation
Sham neurostimulation (SHAM) entails use of the sham side of the D-B80 A/P placed over the same anatomical target, without any active stimulation.
Location
- San Francisco VA Medical CenterSan Francisco, California