ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT07745374Updated Nov 6, 2026

Safety and Feasibility of DBS for Bipolar Depression

An interventional study of Medtronic Percept PC DBS system in Bipolar I Disorder and Bipolar Depression, sponsored by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 22 Years to 70 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-11-06.

Sponsored by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Sep 2026; still recruiting 1 month later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
5
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
22 Years to 70 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

This study addresses a critical unmet need in the treatment of bipolar disorder by investigating whether Subcallosal Cingulate (SCC) Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) can safely and effectively treat treatment-resistant bipolar depression without inducing manic switches. The researchers propose to accomplish this by incorporating monitoring of the SCC local field potentials (LFP) for depression tracking and amygdala LFP monitoring for mania prediction while treating Bipolar I patients with SCC DBS Stimulation. This approach could establish a new paradigm for personalized neuromodulation therapy that uses real-time neural monitoring to optimize outcomes while minimizing risks. By incorporating bilateral, dual-site LFP monitoring from both the SCC and amygdala, this research will allow the researchers to assess the therapeutic efficacy of continuous SCC-DBS and develop novel safety biomarkers that could transform the clinical management of DBS therapy in psychiatry. The findings will have immediate implications for clinical practice and will advance the study team's fundamental understanding of the neural circuits underlying mood regulation and dysregulation in bipolar disorder.

02

Conditions studied

  • Bipolar I Disorder
  • Bipolar Depression

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Keywords

  • deep brain stimulation
  • safety
  • subcallosal cingulate
  • local field potentials
  • Bipolar 1 depression
03

In context

Bipolar Disorder

1,683 studies on the registry are indexed under Bipolar Disorder; 266 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 5 is below the median of 64 across 1,279 interventional studies indexed under Bipolar Disorder.

Browse Bipolar Disorder studies →

Lead sponsor

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is the lead sponsor of 776 studies on the registry; 176 are open to participants now.

Of its 125 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 83 (66%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
22 Years to 70 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

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

  • Age 22-70 years
  • Ability to provide written
  • Primary diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder confirmed by SCID-5
  • Current major depressive episode (MDE) of at least 12 months duration
  • Stable control of mania for a minimum of 1 year
  • Agreement to remain on current anti-mania medication regimen
  • Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17 (HDRS-17) score ≥20 at screening and baseline
  • Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) score \<12 at screening and baseline
  • Treatment-resistant depression: failure to respond to at least 4 adequate trials of antidepressant treatment in the current episode. Antidepressant treatments include: Medications (Must include 2 antidepressant medications from different pharmacological classes), Psychotherapy, ECT, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), IV ketamine or intra-nasal esketamine.
  • All patients must be receiving at least one mood stabilizing medication at entry into the trial. Medication regimen must be stable for a minimum of 4 weeks before the baseline visit.
  • Able to provide informed consent
  • English-speaking
  • Deemed suitable surgical candidate by neurosurgical evaluation
  • Under care of treating psychiatrist willing to collaborate with study team
  • Able to reside in New York Metropolitan area during first 6 months or willing/able to travel monthly to study site
  • Provision of at least two emergency contacts age ≥22 residing within reasonable proximity

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria

  • Current manic or hypomanic episode (YMRS ≥12)
  • Rapid cycling pattern (≥4 mood episodes in the past 12 months)
  • Active suicidal ideation with intent or plan
  • Suicide attempt within six months prior to baseline
  • Current psychotic symptoms
  • Primary diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or other psychotic disorder
  • History (current and/or lifetime) of one or more schizophrenia-spectrum or other psychotic disorders including: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder, delusional disorder, and major depressive disorder with psychosis (unipolar or bipolar), and/or psychotic depression (unipolar or bipolar) (does not include psychosis occurring in the context of a manic episode of a subject with bipolar disorder)
  • Substance use disorder (moderate or severe) within 6 months
  • Presence of any type of dementia / Major Neurocognitive Disorder / significant cognitive impairment interfering with study participation
  • Subject has had a prior VNS Therapy or deep brain stimulation (DBS) implant
  • Subject has a diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder as defined by the without sustained remission (12 months or longer)
  • History of borderline or severe personality disorder, as determined by clinical judgment, which would significantly interfere with a subject's participation in the study
  • Active primary diagnosis of one or more of the following disorders: obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder
  • Cognitive or psychiatric deficit (e.g., amnesia, delirium) that in the investigator's judgment would interfere with the subject's ability to accurately complete study assessments
  • Current or lifetime history of psychotic features in any major depressive episode (MDE)
  • Treatment with another device or investigational drugs
  • to MRI (metallic implants, claustrophobia unmanageable with anxiolytics)
  • Contraindications to general anesthesia or neurosurgery
  • Significant structural brain abnormalities precluding safe electrode placement
  • Active infection or state
  • Active unstable medial condition (diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cancer, endocrine)
  • >35; and/or CRP >3
  • Coagulopathy or anticoagulation that cannot be safely interrupted
  • Pregnancy or planning pregnancy during study period
  • Women of unwilling to use effective
  • Prisoners or institutionalized individuals
  • Decisionally impaired individuals (unless previously consented when capacitated)
  • Special status patients (employees, VIPs, celebrities, public figures) unless consented before special status known
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(8)

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.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

DSM diagnostic criteria

The American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental health diagnoses. DSM-5 (2013, revised as DSM-5-TR in 2022) replaced DSM-IV, and some studies still name the older edition. “Meets DSM criteria for …” means diagnosed by that edition’s diagnostic criteria, usually by a clinician in an interview.

Investigational drug or device

A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.

It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.

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.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

BMI (body mass index)

Weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Example: 70 kg and 1.75 m gives 70 ÷ (1.75 × 1.75) ≈ 22.9.

What counts as overweight or obesity differs between countries (some use lower cut-offs), so go by the range the study states.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
5 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Participants with Bipolar disorder

    Participants with BPD will be treated with open label active bilateral Subcallosal Cingulate (SCC) Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) with ongoing local field potential monitoring from the SCC and amygdala.

    Device: Medtronic Percept PC DBS system

Interventions

  • DeviceMedtronic Percept PC DBS system

    Open label active Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) with continuous monitoring of local field potentials (LFP) from the SCC and amygdala.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS)

    The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), is a 17-item questionnaire assessing severity of depression. Scores range from 0-50, with a higher score indicating more severe depression.

    Time frame: Baseline and weekly up to 1 year

Secondary outcomes

  1. Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS)

    Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) is an 11-item questionnaire to measure the severity of manic symptoms. 7 items are scored 0-4 and the other 4 items are scored 0-8. The overall YMRS score ranges from 0-60, with a higher score indicating more severe mania.

    Time frame: Baseline and weekly up to 1 year

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics, Clinical Neurosciences Center, Mount Sinai West
    New York, New York 10019, United States
    Recruiting
08

References and documents

Study documents

PDFs hosted by the registry, ClinicalTrials.gov.

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — Individual participant demographic and outcome data, after deidentification.

Supporting information: Study protocol, Informed consent form, Clinical study report

Time frame: Beginning 9 months and ending 36 months following publication of findings.

Access criteria: Investigators whose proposed use of the data has been approved by an independent review committee ('learned intermediary') identified for this purpose. To achieve aims in the approved proposal, physiology and imaging data will be housed at a URL to be created during the protocol. After publication the URL will be provided and investigators whose proposed use of the data has been approved will be provided with access.

09

Updates

1 registry update since Sep 25, 2026
Minor edits
Nothing that changes what the study is or who can join. Edited: date precision
1 update, last Nov 6, 2026
Show all 1 update
  1. Nov 6, 2026
    Minor edits only
    + 1 other change: date precision

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07745374
Responsible party
Helen Mayberg, MD (Director, Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics; Professor, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) — Principal investigator
First posted
Aug 4, 2026
Start date
Sep 21, 2026
Primary completion
Oct 2028 (estimated)
Completion
Oct 2028 (estimated)
Last update
Nov 6, 2026

Study contacts

Ellie Rapp
Contact
ellie.rapp@mssm.edu
646-493-1607
Avantika Vardhan
Contact
avantika.vardhan@mssm.edu
Helen Mayberg, MD
principal investigator · Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Oversight

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

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