Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Fear Extinction
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03907917. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
The Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Fear Extinction Learning and Memory Processes
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Psychiatric disorders characterized by pathological fear and anxiety are common and often disabling. Despite their limitations, exposure therapies are among the most efficacious treatments for these disorders. Extinction learning is thought to be a core mechanism of therapeutic exposure. Extinction learning is mediated by a well-defined circuit encompassing the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), amygdala, and hippocampus. This raises the exciting possibility that direct engagement of this circuitry might enhance the response to therapeutic exposure. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulation technology that can augment brain plasticity, learning, and memory. The proposed study will evaluate whether tDCS can engage extinction circuitry, and improve extinction learning and memory. This study will enroll psychiatrically healthy volunteers to test whether tDCS applied to the mPFC can augment spontaneous mPFC activity, engagement of extinction circuitry during extinction learning and recall, and classically-conditioned extinction learning and memory. Healthy volunteers will complete a standardized, three-day fear conditioning and extinction learning and memory task. On day 1, participants will complete a fear conditioning task. On day 2, participants will receive sham (placebo) or active tDCS prior to completing a fear extinction learning task. On day 3, participants will complete an extinction recall task. Electrodermal activity and heart rate will be continuously monitored during the conditioning and extinction procedures to assess autonomic arousal. All procedures will be completed in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner; imaging data will be collected before and after tDCS and during all conditioning and extinction procedures.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03907917
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 67 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 55 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Apr 8, 2019
- Primary completion
- May 31, 2023
- Completion
- May 31, 2023
- Last update posted
- Aug 23, 2023
2019 – 2023
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 2
- U.S. states
- 2
- U.S. cities
- 2
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yale School of Medicine | New Haven | Connecticut | 06511 | — |
| University of Kentucky | Lexington | Kentucky | 40506 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03907917, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Aug 23, 2023 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03907917 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.