Understanding How Alzheimer's Disease Impacts the Therapeutic Response to Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Status

Recruiting

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT05508841

Enrollment

Registered

2022-08-19

Start date

2022-09-01

Completion date

2026-12-31

Last updated

2024-08-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Alzheimer Disease

Brief summary

There is currently little symptomatic therapy for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and nothing effective for individuals with Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). However, neuromodulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has the potential to be a clinically effective therapy for both AD and FTD. The challenge now is to specify the parameters and conditions under which tDCS is most effective to transition from the laboratory to clinical medicine. tDCS studies typically report significant group effects despite the variability demonstrated among participants, with some showing clear, meaningful improvement, while others only show statistical improvement or none at all. These variable results may be related to the conventional stimulation intensity level of 2mA. The investigators predict that administering tDCS at 4.0 mA, a more significant number of participants would show a meaningful response, and those who improve at 2mA may improve even more from 4.0mA due to having a larger electric field produced. The investigators aim to test this hypothesis in people with Alzheimer's Disease.

Interventions

OTHERtDCS and Cognitive Training

Participants will receive mild stimulation or no stimulation along with cognitive training

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

CROSSOVER

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE (Subject, Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

50 Years to 90 Years

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

* Mild to Moderate AD * Score between 18 and 25 on the MoCA * Able to do the N-Back task during the initial screening

Exclusion criteria

* No history of stroke or TBI * No shunts or metal in the body * No history of significant heart disease, alcoholism and drug use

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
N-Back	3 months	The primary outcome measure will be change on an N-Back Task, both a trained version and an untrained version. This change will be measured in terms of the average response time

Countries

Canada

Contacts

Primary ContactCarlos Roncero, PhD

troncero@research.baycrest.org

Backup ContactYashna Kochar, H BSc

ykochar@research.baycrest.org

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026