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RecruitingNCT05611502TAMUpdated Oct 7, 2025

Influence of TMS on Attention Modulation

An interventional study of TMS in Drinking, Alcohol, sponsored by Auburn University. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-10-07.

Primary conditionAlcohol Drinking(the registry's first term)UnverifiedIs this wrong?Alcohol Drinking is a broad heading, used only when no more specific condition is named. No better condition is named, so the registry's term is kept.

Sponsored by Auburn University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science

From the registry’s dates

  • Primary completion was expected by Dec 2025, 10 months ago, but the record still lists the study as recruiting.
  • Started Aug 2022; still recruiting 4 years 3 months later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
40
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this study is to help understand how attention processes influence brain engagement during emotion and social cognition. The investigators also want to know if these processes are associated with drinking alcohol.

Participation includes three study visits of about 2 hours each over approximately a month. The first visit involves a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan and answering survey questions. Each of the next two visits will involve a session of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS, a non-invasive brain stimulation technique) followed by another MRI scan.

People in the Auburn/Opelika area 19 or older are eligible to participate. People who drink alcohol and people who do not drink or don't drink very much are invited to participate.

02

Conditions studied

  • Drinking, Alcohol

Browse trials for

Keywords

  • alcohol
  • attention
  • TMS
  • binge drinking
  • emotion
  • social cognition
  • moral
  • MRI
  • frontal eye fields
  • moral cognition
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In context

Alcohol Drinking Unverified

701 studies on the registry are indexed under Alcohol Drinking; 133 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 40 is below the median of 122 across 607 interventional studies indexed under Alcohol Drinking.

Browse Alcohol Drinking studies →

Lead sponsor

Auburn University is the lead sponsor of 72 studies on the registry; 20 are open to participants now.

Compared within Alcohol Drinking, the registry's first condition term, which may not be this study's main condition. Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily. How we classify →

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

1. Age 18 or Older

2A. (Drinker Group): Reports consuming 4 [if female]/ 5 [if male] or more standard drinks on one occasion at least 2 times a month AND/OR reports consuming more than 7 [if female]/ 14 [if male] standard drinks per week on average

2B. (Healthy Volunteer Group): Reports consuming 4 [if female]/ 5 [if male] or more standard drinks on one occasion less than once a month AND reports consuming less than 7 [if female]/ 14 [if male] standard drinks per week on average

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. MRI

    1. Presence of metal in the body that would make having a 7T MRI unsafe (including facial tattoos)
    2. Claustrophobia, such that individual would be unable to stay in the MRI for up to 1 hr
    3. Hearing loss, including tinnitus, that might be made worse by MRI or TMS

  2. TMS Contraindications

    1. Has ever had a seizure, or has a family history of epilepsy
    2. Taking medications or substances that lower the seizure threshold*
    3. Implanted devices that are in the head or rely on physiological signals
    4. History of neurological disease, such as stroke or brain tumor
    5. Head injury with loss of consciousness greater than 30 minutes
    6. Actively withdrawing from alcohol
  3. Family history of schizophrenia or presence of psychotic symptoms
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Contraindication

A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Crossover assignment
Masking
Single (Participant)
Enrollment
40 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    TMS A

    TMS administered over right frontal eye field at 10 Hz, 110% of MT, 60 x 5 sec trains, 25 sec ITI

    Device: TMS

  • Active comparator
    TMS B

    TMS administered over right frontal eye field at 1 Hz, 110% of MT, 7 x 225 sec trains, 30 sec ITI

    Device: TMS

Interventions

  • DeviceTMS

    TMS will be administered in a pattern that is either excitatory or inhibitory.

    Also known as: Magventure MagPro

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Change in attention switching

    MRI Task- analysis of behavioral data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

  2. Change in sociomoral attention switching

    MRI Task- analysis of behavioral data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

  3. Change in cue reactivity

    MRI Task- analysis of behavioral data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

Secondary outcomes

  1. Change in brain activity attention switching

    MRI Task- analysis of imaging (fMRI) data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

  2. Change in brain activity during sociomoral attention switching

    MRI Task- analysis of imaging (fMRI) data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

  3. Change in brain activity during cue reactivity

    MRI Task- analysis of imaging (fMRI) data

    Time frame: Baseline, immediately following TMS A, immediately following TMS B

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — Data will be shared through the NIAAA Data Archive according to standard NIAAA procedures. This will include deidentified behavioral, self-report, and imaging data. Participants will have the option to opt out of having their individual data available.

Supporting information: Study protocol, Informed consent form

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Started Aug 2022 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Dec 2025, 40 months after the start.

Of 328 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Alcohol Drinking, half reached primary completion within 24 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 11 and three quarters within 45. This study's planned 40 months is above that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 336 studies reached it within 24 months; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 45.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Oct 26, 2022
First posted
Nov 10, 2022
StartActual
Aug 11, 2022
Primary completionEst.
Dec 31, 2025
CompletionEst.
Dec 31, 2025
Last update
Oct 7, 2025
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Oct 7, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05611502
Lead sponsor
Auburn University
Collaborators
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Responsible party
Samantha Fede (Assistant Professor, Auburn University) — Principal investigator
First posted
Nov 10, 2022
Start date
Aug 11, 2022
Primary completion
Dec 31, 2025 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 31, 2025 (estimated)
Last update
Oct 7, 2025

Study contacts

SCAMPI Lab
Contact
scampi@auburn.edu
334-521-2807
Samantha J Fede, PhD
principal investigator · Principal Investigator

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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