TDCS to Improve Motivation and Memory in Elderly (TIME)
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04268186. 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
Noninvasive Brain Stimulation as a Tool to Study the Role of Motivation in Age-related Cognitive Abilities
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Fundamental advancements in understanding successful aging are limited by the lack of causal, rather than just correlational methods to connect age-related changes in memory ability to changes in brain structure and function. In this study, non-invasive electric brain stimulation will be used as a tool to create causal links between successful memory function in aging and brain structures associated with motivation. Recently, it was shown that a group of elderly, dubbed "superagers", are indistinguishable from young adults in memory performance and the structure of cortical limbic regions. A key superaging region is mid-cingulate cortex (MCC), a brain structure associated with motivation and tenacity. The MCC is a hub region that synchronizes information flow between three core brain networks. The goal of the research is to explore the contribution of motivation to memory performance by modulating MCC connectivity with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to provide the first causal evidence that experimentally induced motivation can improve memory performance. Since MCC has not been stimulated with tDCS before, we will test three different stimulation protocols and compare against a placebo. The stimulation protocols were computationally optimized for this project. The primary aim is to find the stimulation protocol most successful at improving memory performance. In order to elucidate the mechanisms behind these changes, effects of stimulation on motivation and network connectivity will be investigated. If indeed memory can be improved by increasing motivation and effort via stimulating MCC, this study will generate new insights into the motivational mechanisms of successful aging.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT04268186
- Recruitment status
- Not listed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 72 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Direct tDCS Device
- Indirect tDCS Device
- Personalized tDCS Device
- Sham tDCS Device
Device
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 65 Years to 80 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
- Jan 21, 2020
- Primary completion
- Aug 31, 2020
- Completion
- Aug 31, 2020
- Last update posted
- Feb 12, 2020
2020
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeastern University | Boston | Massachusetts | 02115 | Recruiting |
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 NCT04268186, 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 Feb 12, 2020 · Synced Sep 7, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT04268186 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.