An interventional study of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Schizophrenia, sponsored by University of California, Davis. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 50 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-07-29.
Sponsored by University of California, Davis · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
The purpose of this study is to better understand the neural correlates of higher-order cognition, both in the healthy brain and in schizophrenia, and to determine how these mechanisms are modulated by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) at frontal and occipital scalp sites. Testing the effects of tDCS at these scalp sites on cognitive task performance will help us understand the roles of the brain regions corresponding to these sites during higher-order cognitive processing (language comprehension, cognitive control, and related attention and memory processes). Behavioral and electrophysiological (EEG) measures will be used to assess cognitive performance. The investigator's overarching hypothesis is that stimulating prefrontal circuits with tDCS can improve cognitive control performance, and ultimately performance on a range of cognitive tasks, as compared to stimulating a different cortical region (occipital cortex) or using sham stimulation. This study is solely intended as basic research in order to understand brain function in healthy individuals and individuals with schizophrenia. This study is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat schizophrenia or any other disease.
3,471 studies on the registry are indexed under Schizophrenia; 472 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 86 is above the median of 70 across 2,872 interventional studies indexed under Schizophrenia.
Browse Schizophrenia studies →University of California, Davis is the lead sponsor of 798 studies on the registry; 146 are open to participants now.
Of its 65 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 43 (66%) have results posted.
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Inclusion Criteria for Patients with Schizophrenia Only:
Exclusion Criteria:
Intervention. 20 minutes of 2 mA direct current stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
Intervention. 20 minutes of 2 mA direct current stimulation over the occipital cortex.
Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
Placebo Comparator. 0.5-1 minutes of 2 mA direct current stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex followed by 19-19.5 minutes of sham stimulation
Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
In tDCS, saline-soaked electrodes are temporary affixed to the scalp and connected to a battery-powered current generator. A weak (2 mA) constant current is then briefly applied (\~20 minutes) to stimulate the targeted brain area (e.g. the DLPFC). To control for placebo effects, the study will utilize a sham stimulation protocol that consists of very brief constant stimulation (\~1 minute). Subjects usually cannot discern the difference between the sham and experimental stimulation protocols due to habituation.
EEG Correlates of Language and Cognitive Control
Electrophysiological data recorded during completion of cognitive control and language comprehension tasks. We will measure oscillatory activity in the theta, alpha, beta and gamma frequency bands.
Time frame: Assessment will begin immediately following stimulation and last for about 1.5 hours.
Behavioral Response (Cognitive Control Task)
We will assess performance on the Dot Pattern Expectancy (DPX) task (error rates and d-prime scores).
Time frame: Assessment will begin immediately following stimulation and last for about 1.5 hours.
Behavioral Response (Language Task)
We will assess performance on a novel Language Comprehension task (accuracy and semantic relatedness judgement scores).
Time frame: Assessment will begin immediately following stimulation and last for about 1.5 hours.
Plan to share: Yes — Select data from this study may be submitted to the National Institute of Mental Health Data Archive (NDA). NDA is a data repository run by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that allows researchers studying mental illness to collect and share de-identified information with each other. The data repository is accessible only to qualified investigators. All subject data will be de-identified (subject names will not be used) and each subject will have a separate identifier called a Global Unique Identifier (GUID) to remove any possibility that "the identities of the subjects cannot be readily ascertained or otherwise associated with the data by the repository staff or secondary data users." (45 CFR, 46.102).
This study is completed, as verified in Jul 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of California, Davis