An interventional study of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, sponsored by Stanford University. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 80 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-12-10.
Sponsored by Stanford University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
The goal of this clinical trial is to discover brain-based subtypes of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and examine treatment response to two different repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) targets in the brain: the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the right prefrontal cortex (rPFC).
New interventions are urgently needed to treat obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), as more than 25% of patients show no improvement with the standard of care. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a promising alternative treatment, as it uses focused magnetic field pulses to stimulate specific brain areas. So far, medial and right prefrontal cortex stimulation targets have consistent evidence of efficacy in OCD. Patients often show a strong response to one target but not the other. It is not well understood why some patients respond, while others do not. So far, there are no biomarkers for predicting treatment response, identifying the optimal neuroanatomical target, or choosing between treatments.
The goal of this clinical trial is OCD subtype discovery and treatment optimization. Using MRI scans of OCD patients before and after rTMS treatment we aim to:
606 studies on the registry are indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; 160 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 212 is above the median of 45 across 492 interventional studies indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Browse Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder studies →Stanford University is the lead sponsor of 2,117 studies on the registry; 425 are open to participants now.
Of its 259 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 197 (76%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Off antidepressants OR on a stable dose of SRI medication for at least 8 weeks prior to the study with plans to remain on this stable dose during the study.
a. Medications that are known to increase cortical excitability (e.g., bupropion, maprotiline, tricyclic antidepressants, classical antipsychotics) or to have an inhibitory effect on brain excitability (e.g., anticonvulsants, benzodiazepines, and atypical antipsychotics), or any other medications with relative hazard for use in TMS will be allowed upon review of medications and/or motor threshold determination by TMS specialist.
Exclusion Criteria:
Intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) of MPFC at up to 100% resting motor threshold (RMT), with lower extremity RMT established for the MPFC target.
Device: Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) of rPFC at up to 110% of RMT, with upper extremity RMT established for the rPFC target.
Device: Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Participants will receive a 5-day course of 10x daily rTMS, with sessions delivered hourly. Each session will deliver up to 1800 pulses of theta-burst stimulation per target.
Also known as: rTMS, MagVenture MagPro rTMS Research System
resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of frontostriatal networks
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in the frontostriatal networks targeted by rTMS (MPFC or rPFC)
Time frame: pre-treatment up to 1-month post-treatment
OCD symptoms
Change in OCD symptoms (YBOCS 2, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale 2, score range: 0-50, higher scores indicating higher symptom levels) following treatment with rTMS
Time frame: pre-treatment to 1-week post-treatment
Plan to share: Yes — The project will implement open data dissemination to ensure that the other FFOR teams and subsequently the wider research community will have ready access to the acquired data, including clinical and neuroimaging data from patients before and after treatment. To this end, all consent forms and datasharing agreements across the recruiting sites will incorporate content to enable this open data-sharing.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Sap, Icf, Csr, Analytic code
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Dec 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder→
Stanford University