HealthyPhase 1NCT00072735
Improvement of Use Dependent Plasticity in Chronic Stroke Patients
A Phase 1 study testing Electrocardiogram in people with Healthy and Cerebrovascular Accident, run by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
This study will examine the role of an amphetamine in improving the effect that electrical nerve stimulation has over brain flexibility associated with motor training in patients who experienced a stroke more than 1 year before. Chronic stroke is the main cause of long-term disability among adults. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 years and older
- Conditions the study is for
- Healthy, Cerebrovascular Accident
- What is being tested?
- Electrocardiogram
- Type of treatment
- Surgery or procedure
- How many people
- 48 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 6 Nov 2003to 15 Aug 2007
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 years and older
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- We will include patients with thromboembolic non-hemorrhagic hemispheric lesions at least 12 months after the stroke.
- We will choose patients who initially had a severe motor paresis (below MRC grade 2), which subsequently recovered to the point that they have a residual motor deficit but can perform the required tasks.
- As a control group, we will include age- and gender matched normal volunteers with matched non-dominant/dominant hand (to the affected hand of the stroke patients).
Who cannot join
- Patients with more than one stroke in the middle cerebral artery territory.
- Patients with bilateral motor impairment.
- Patients with cerebellar or brainstem lesions.
- Patients receiving alpha-adrenergic antagonists or agonists, major/minor tranquilizers, clonidine, prazosin, phonation, benzodiazepines, scopolamine, haloperidol, other neuroleptics, barbiturates and MAO inhibitors.
- Patients or normal volunteers unable to perform the task (wrist or elbow flexion at least MRC grade 2).
- Patients or normal volunteers with history of severe alcohol or drug abuse, psychiatric illness like severe depression, poor motivational capacity, or severe language disturbances, particularly of receptive nature or with serious cognitive deficits (defined as equivalent to a mini-mental state exam score of 23 or less).
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- Patients or normal volunteers with severe uncontrolled medical problems (e.g. hypertension, cardiovascular disease, severe rheumatoid arthritis, active joint deformity of arthritic origin, active cancer or renal disease, any kind of end-stage pulmonary or cardiovascular disease, or a deteriorated condition due to age, uncontrolled epilepsy or others).
- Patients or normal volunteers with increased intracranial pressure as evaluated by clinical means.
- Patients or normal volunteers with unstable cardiac arrhythmia.
- Patients or normal volunteers with history of hyperthyroidism or individuals receiving drugs acting primarily on the central nervous system.
- Patients and normal volunteers with more than moderate to severe microangiopathy, polyneuropathy, diabetes mellitus, or ischemic peripheral disease.
- Pregnancy.
- Patients and normal volunteers less than 18 years of age.
- Lactating women.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
United States1 site
National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland, 20892
About this study
This study will examine the role of an amphetamine in improving the effect that electrical nerve stimulation has over brain flexibility associated with motor training in patients who experienced a stroke more than 1 year before. Chronic stroke is the main cause of long-term disability among adults. Previous studies have shown that electrical stimulation given over the skin may improve patients' recovery of motor function. Furthermore, it is known that amphetamines can improve the effects of sensory stimulation such as touch. Use dependent plasticity refers to a process in which the performance of simple, repetitive finger movements leads to encoding the details of those actions in the primary motor cortex of the brain. Plasticity in this sense refers to the capacity for change in the brain.
Patients 18 years of age and older who have had a stroke, who have no history of other neurological and psychiatric illnesses, and who are able to contrite and perform simple attentional tasks and other tasks may be eligible for this study. There will also be healthy participants as a control group.
Read more
Participants will have an electrocardiogram. They will also go through a practice session of about 3 hours in which they become familiar with the different tasks required in the study: motor training, pinch force, and the Jebsen-Taylor Test-which requires doing as fast as possible actions that include writing, lifting small common objects, turning pages, or lifting light or heavy objects. Then during the study, patients will be involved in a variety of sessions:
- Motor training alone for about 3 hours.
- Motor training, amphetamine (or placebo), and electrical stimulation for about 6 hours.
- Motor training, amphetamine, and no electrical stimulation for about 6 hours.
A magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) scan will be done. Patients will lie still on a table that can slide in and out of a metal cylinder surrounded by a strong magnetic field. Scanning time varies from 20 minutes to 3 hours, with most scans lasting between 45 and 90 minutes. Patients may be asked to lie still for up to 60 minutes at a time. As the scanner takes pictures, there will be loud knocking noises, and the patients will wear earplugs to muffle the sound. Patients will be able to communicate with the MRI staff at all times during the scan and may ask to be moved out of the machine at any time.
During another procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a wire coil will be held over the scalp. A brief electrical current will be passed through the coil, creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the brain. Patients will hear a click and may feel a pulling sensation on the skin under the coil. There may be muscle twitches of the face, arm, or leg. Patients may be asked to tense certain muscles slightly or perform other simple actions so that the coil can be positioned appropriately. The stimulation is usually not painful, although sometimes strong contractions of the scalp muscles can cause discomfort or a headache. Patients can ask to have the procedure discontinued at any time.
For the electrical stimulation procedure, three pairs of electrodes will be placed on the skin. A quite brief pulse of current will pass between the electrodes, creating the electrical field that activates the brain. Patients will feel a brief stinging around the electrodes. Regarding the amphetamine, patients will take it orally on up to four different occasions. Usually they will take 10 mg of Dexedrin before testing.
Read the detailed description
OBJECTIVES:
There is no universally accepted strategy to promote recovery of motor function after chronic stroke, the main cause of long-term disability among adults. It is desirable to develop strategies to enhance motor training in this patient group. A recent study in stroke patients and healthy volunteers demonstrated that somatosensory nerve stimulation prior to motor training leads to improvements in use-dependent plasticity (UDP), a process thought to underlie recovery of motor function after brain injury (Sawaki et al., unpublished information). Interestingly, the effects of sensory input on cortical plasticity can be enhanced by a single dose of amphetamine. The objective of this protocol is to further enhance the effect that somatosensory nerve stimulation has on motor training by means of pre-medication with amphetamine. This effect over motor training will be measured by the magnitude of training-induced UDP. Our hypothesis is that the amphetamine-enhanced effects of somatosensory nerve stimulation will increase the magnitude of training-induced UDP.
STUDY POPULATION:
We plan to study 24 patients with chronic strokes and 24 healthy age- and gender matched normal volunteers.
DESIGN:
All subjects will participate in 5 different randomized sessions on separate days. The first session will be a familiarization with the behavioral tasks. A second experiment will consist of training with no further interventions to obtain baseline UDP changes. In another two sessions, subjects will be premedicated in a blind manner with amphetamine or placebo before administration of somatosensory nerve stimulation followed by motor training to induce UDP. In the last experiment, the participants will be premedicated with amphetamine and will be exposed to sham somatosensory stimulation prior to the motor training to induce UDP.
OUTCOME MEASURES:
Primary outcome measure will be the magnitude of UDP (training-induced changes in transcranial magnetic stimulation-evoked kinematic responses). Secondary outcome measures are pinch force; and a functional measure of activities of daily life (ADL): Jebsen-Tailor-Test. To better understand the mechanisms underlying the proposed behavioral gains, we will use TMS to identify changes in corticomotor excitability.
- Conditions
- Healthy, Cerebrovascular Accident
- Being tested
- Electrocardiogram
- Keywords
- Use Dependent Plasticity, Cortical Reorganization, Rehabilitation, Somatosensory Nerve, Amphetamine, Stroke, Healthy Volunteer, HV
- Medical subject headings
- Stroke
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
ElectrocardiogramProcedure or surgery
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted10 Nov 2003 (estimated)
- Study start6 Nov 2003
- Study completion15 Aug 2007
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Publications (1)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for HealthyStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)The sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Enrolment
- 48 participants
Sponsor and investigators
- Sponsor type
- US National Institutes of Health
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT00072735
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- 040042
- Other IDs
- 04-N-0042
- Status last verified
- 15 Aug 2007
- First submitted
- 7 Nov 2003
- Last updated
- 2 Jul 2017
- Results posted
- No
Publications
Conforto AB, Kaelin-Lang A, Cohen LG. Increase in hand muscle strength of stroke patients after somatosensory stimulation. Ann Neurol. 2002 Jan;51(1):122-5. doi: 10.1002/ana.10070.
PubMed 11782992
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 2 Jul 2017. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Improvement of Use Dependent Plasticity in Chronic Stroke Patients
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT00072735
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- 040042
- Conditions
- Healthy, Cerebrovascular Accident
- Keywords
- Use Dependent Plasticity, Cortical Reorganization, Rehabilitation, Somatosensory Nerve, Amphetamine, Stroke, Healthy Volunteer, HV
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 48 participants
- Lead sponsor
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)US National Institutes of Health
- Study start
- 6 Nov 2003
- Study completion
- 15 Aug 2007
- First posted
- 10 Nov 2003 (estimated)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
This study will examine the role of an amphetamine in improving the effect that electrical nerve stimulation has over brain flexibility associated with motor training in patients who experienced a stroke more than 1 year before. Chronic stroke is the main cause of long-term disability among adults. Previous studies have shown that electrical stimulation given over the skin may improve patients' recovery of motor function. Furthermore, it is known that amphetamines can improve the effects of sensory stimulation such as touch. Use dependent plasticity refers to a process in which the performance of simple, repetitive finger movements leads to encoding the details of those actions in the primary motor cortex of the brain. Plasticity in this sense refers to the capacity for change in the brain.
Patients 18 years of age and older who have had a stroke, who have no history of other neurological and psychiatric illnesses, and who are able to contrite and perform simple attentional tasks and other tasks may be eligible for this study. There will also be healthy participants as a control group.
Participants will have an electrocardiogram. They will also go through a practice session of about 3 hours in which they become familiar with the different tasks required in the study: motor training, pinch force, and the Jebsen-Taylor Test-which requires doing as fast as possible actions that include writing, lifting small common objects, turning pages, or lifting light or heavy objects. Then during the study, patients will be involved in a variety of sessions:
- Motor training alone for about 3 hours.
- Motor training, amphetamine (or placebo), and electrical stimulation for about 6 hours.
- Motor training, amphetamine, and no electrical stimulation for about 6 hours.
A magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) scan will be done. Patients will lie still on a table that can slide in and out of a metal cylinder surrounded by a strong magnetic field. Scanning time varies from 20 minutes to 3 hours, with most scans lasting between 45 and 90 minutes. Patients may be asked to lie still for up to 60 minutes at a time. As the scanner takes pictures, there will be loud knocking noises, and the patients will wear earplugs to muffle the sound. Patients will be able to communicate with the MRI staff at all times during the scan and may ask to be moved out of the machine at any time.
During another procedure called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a wire coil will be held over the scalp. A brief electrical current will be passed through the coil, creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the brain. Patients will hear a click and may feel a pulling sensation on the skin under the coil. There may be muscle twitches of the face, arm, or leg. Patients may be asked to tense certain muscles slightly or perform other simple actions so that the coil can be positioned appropriately. The stimulation is usually not painful, although sometimes strong contractions of the scalp muscles can cause discomfort or a headache. Patients can ask to have the procedure discontinued at any time.
For the electrical stimulation procedure, three pairs of electrodes will be placed on the skin. A quite brief pulse of current will pass between the electrodes, creating the electrical field that activates the brain. Patients will feel a brief stinging around the electrodes. Regarding the amphetamine, patients will take it orally on up to four different occasions. Usually they will take 10 mg of Dexedrin before testing.
Detailed description
OBJECTIVES:
There is no universally accepted strategy to promote recovery of motor function after chronic stroke, the main cause of long-term disability among adults. It is desirable to develop strategies to enhance motor training in this patient group. A recent study in stroke patients and healthy volunteers demonstrated that somatosensory nerve stimulation prior to motor training leads to improvements in use-dependent plasticity (UDP), a process thought to underlie recovery of motor function after brain injury (Sawaki et al., unpublished information). Interestingly, the effects of sensory input on cortical plasticity can be enhanced by a single dose of amphetamine. The objective of this protocol is to further enhance the effect that somatosensory nerve stimulation has on motor training by means of pre-medication with amphetamine. This effect over motor training will be measured by the magnitude of training-induced UDP. Our hypothesis is that the amphetamine-enhanced effects of somatosensory nerve stimulation will increase the magnitude of training-induced UDP.
STUDY POPULATION:
We plan to study 24 patients with chronic strokes and 24 healthy age- and gender matched normal volunteers.
DESIGN:
All subjects will participate in 5 different randomized sessions on separate days. The first session will be a familiarization with the behavioral tasks. A second experiment will consist of training with no further interventions to obtain baseline UDP changes. In another two sessions, subjects will be premedicated in a blind manner with amphetamine or placebo before administration of somatosensory nerve stimulation followed by motor training to induce UDP. In the last experiment, the participants will be premedicated with amphetamine and will be exposed to sham somatosensory stimulation prior to the motor training to induce UDP.
OUTCOME MEASURES:
Primary outcome measure will be the magnitude of UDP (training-induced changes in transcranial magnetic stimulation-evoked kinematic responses). Secondary outcome measures are pinch force; and a functional measure of activities of daily life (ADL): Jebsen-Tailor-Test. To better understand the mechanisms underlying the proposed behavioral gains, we will use TMS to identify changes in corticomotor excitability.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (3 listed)
- We will include patients with thromboembolic non-hemorrhagic hemispheric lesions at least 12 months after the stroke.
- We will choose patients who initially had a severe motor paresis (below MRC grade 2), which subsequently recovered to the point that they have a residual motor deficit but can perform the required tasks.
- As a control group, we will include age- and gender matched normal volunteers with matched non-dominant/dominant hand (to the affected hand of the stroke patients).
Key exclusion criteria (14 listed)
- Patients with more than one stroke in the middle cerebral artery territory.
- Patients with bilateral motor impairment.
- Patients with cerebellar or brainstem lesions.
- Patients receiving alpha-adrenergic antagonists or agonists, major/minor tranquilizers, clonidine, prazosin, phonation, benzodiazepines, scopolamine, haloperidol, other neuroleptics, barbiturates and MAO inhibitors.
- Patients or normal volunteers unable to perform the task (wrist or elbow flexion at least MRC grade 2).
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Electrocardiogram | Procedure or surgery | – |
Primary outcome
Not reported in the source record.
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 2 Jul 2017.
- Background: PubMed 11782992Conforto AB, Kaelin-Lang A, Cohen LG. Increase in hand muscle strength of stroke patients after somatosensory stimulation. Ann Neurol. 2002 Jan;51(1):122-5. doi: 10.1002/ana.10070.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
The record lists no contact. Use the official record to reach the sponsor.
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A Phase 1 study testing Electrocardiogram in people with Healthy and Cerebrovascular Accident, run by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 14 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 2 Jul 2017. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
What does this phase mean?
Phase 1 studies test a treatment in a small group of people for the first time or in a new way, mainly to check safety and find the right dose.
Not every study follows the same path, and some studies (observational studies, device studies) have no phase.
Are results available for this study?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT00072735, which also lists 1 linked publication.
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 2 Jul 2017.