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Basic ScienceNCT05079516

Neural Basis of Sensory Learning: Brain Regions

A study testing Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation in people with Basic Science, run by Indiana University at 1 site in United States.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

The purpose of this study is to understand how the sensory and motor areas of the brain work together to keep a person's hand movements accurate (sensorimotor learning). The investigators hope this information may be useful one day to improve rehabilitation techniques in patients with brain lesions. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 to 45 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
Conditions the study is for
Basic Science
What is being tested?
Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Could I receive a placebo?
Yes, some participants may receive a placebo
How many people
300 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
26 Oct 2021to Dec 2026
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

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 to 45 years
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Adult

Who may be able to join

  • Potential subjects must be between the ages of 18-45 years old and right-handed. Aging has been shown to affect the morphology of sensory and motor nerves, conduction velocities of nerves, and number of motor neurons in the spinal cord; to avoid these confounding factors we will only examine younger-to middle-aged adults.
  • There are differences in cortical function and corticospinal projections such that testing the right arm of a right-handed individual is not necessarily equivalent to testing the left arm of a left-handed individual. To eliminate this confound, we will only test right-handed individuals. All these factors will be determined with the initial screening questions.
  • Covid has been found to have neurological effects in some people, but mostly the effects on sensorimotor control and neurophysiology are unknown. So we want to reduce the chances of inadvertently testing subjects who have covid. We will therefore only include individuals who are fully vaccinated (2+ weeks past their final vaccine dose) or have a negative Covid test within 4 days of testing. We will further only include individuals who report being free of Covid symptoms in week preceding testing.

Who cannot join

  • Determined with initial screening questions, pre-enrollment:
  • Potential subjects will be excluded for current vision problems, other than needing glasses or contacts. Subjects will also be excluded if they currently suffer from frequent severe headaches, glaucoma, heart or respiratory disease, hypertension, psychiatric conditions, or learning or attention conditions. They will also be excluded for current or past: visual, hearing, or balance impairments; stroke, seizure/epilepsy (including family history), or severe head trauma; fainting; or diabetes. Subjects will be excluded for metal implants in the head other than titanium; cochlear implants; implanted neurostimulator; cardiac pacemaker; intracardiac lines; or a medication infusion device. Because TMS does not penetrate deeply into the head, we cannot test subjects whose hair does not permit contact between the TMS coil and the scalp. We will therefore exclude subjects with dreadlocks, weaves, or hair extensions. To protect the data from extraneous peripheral influences, we will also exclude subjects who have had serious injury to the bones, joints, or muscles of either hand or arm, and have not fully recovered. For the purpose of this study, "fully recovered" means they no longer notice any pain, weakness, or loss of sensation in the injured area, and have no mobility limitations.
  • For the validity of our data, we will exclude subjects taking medications or drugs that are known to affect cortical excitability and possibly seizure risk in an rTMS study. These medications/drugs are (Rossi et al., 2009): imipramine, amitriptyline, doxepine, nortriptyline, maprotiline, chlorpromazine, clozapine, foscarnet, ganciclovir, ritonavir, amphetamines, cocaine, (MDMA, ecstasy), phencyclidine (PCP, angel's dust), ketamine, gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), theophylline, mianserin, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, sertraline, citalopram, reboxetine, venlafaxine, duloxetine, bupropion, mirtazapine, fluphenazine, pimozide, haloperidol, olanzapine, quetiapine, aripiprazole, ziprasidone, risperidone, chloroquine, mefloquine, imipenem, penicillin, ampicillin, cephalosporins, metronidazole, isoniazid, levofloxacin, cyclosporin, chlorambucil, vincristine, methotrexate, cytosine arabinoside, BCNU, lithium, anticholinergics, antihistamines, sympathomimetics.
  • Determined on each day of TMS testing:
  • Potential subjects will be invited to reschedule if they would otherwise be eligible (according to the initial screening), but the day of testing have drunk more than 3 units of alcohol or taken other recreational drugs in the 24 hour period prior to testing; have had more than 3 cups of coffee in the last hour; are sleep deprived (<4 hours sleep the previous night); or have participated in another brain stimulation experiment the same day. These are standard in the TMS literature to protect the validity of the data and keep seizure risk minimal. In addition, we will invite invite subjects to reschedule if they have any of the common Covid symptoms within the last week and if they haven't been fully vaccinated or obtained a negative Covid test within the past 4 days. If they don't believe they can meet these criteria on another date, they will be excluded.
  • Determined during the Familiarization session.
  • After giving their consent, participants may be excluded during or after the familiarization session if they are unable to perform the reaching task or follow instructions, or if their TMS stimulation parameters cannot be reliably determined by the experimenter, or if TMS is not well tolerated.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

William P Hetrick, PhD contact

8128552620

whetrick@iu.edu

United States1 site, 1 recruiting
  • Indiana University Bloomington

    Bloomington, Indiana, 47405

    Study Coordinator, 8128554079, blocklab@indiana.edu

    Recruiting

Other trials in United States

About this study

The purpose of this study is to understand how the sensory and motor areas of the brain work together to keep a person's hand movements accurate (sensorimotor learning). The investigators hope this information may be useful one day to improve rehabilitation techniques in patients with brain lesions.

Read the detailed description

To make accurate movements, the brain needs to compensate for the frequent changes in the environment one experiences (lighting conditions, slippery floors, etc). For example, when one reaches to grab an object underwater, there are significant challenges the brain must overcome. Water is more viscous than air, so motor planning must take the increased resistance into account. In addition, light is bent by water, so one sees the underwater hand in a different location from where one feels it with body position sense (proprioception, from sensors in the joints and muscles). While initially movement errors occur in a situation like this, a healthy person quickly learns to compensate. This compensation can take different forms. The brain can shift the proprioceptive estimate closer to the visual estimate of hand position or vice versa (sensory realignment), or the brain can compensate for any movement errors by altering the motor commands to the arm (motor adaptation).

Failure to compensate for such changes results in inaccurate movement, raising the potential for accidents and injuries, but how the healthy brain carries out these functions, and how they could be strengthened in populations with sensory and motor deficits (e.g. stroke), is unknown. With greater understanding of these processes in the healthy brain, it may one day be possible to develop rehabilitation strategies that target a patient's unique mix of sensory and motor deficits.

A robust way to identify whether a brain region plays a role in a behavior is to temporarily modulate its excitability in healthy people using non-invasive brain stimulation. This is commonly done in research with a short sequence of low-intensity transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), also known as repetitive TMS (rTMS). rTMS is used clinically to treat conditions such as depression and is considered very low risk provided the generally-accepted screening criteria are met. In the research setting, this technique is widely used not only in healthy adults (as in this study) but also in children and people with concussion, stroke, Parkinson's disease, and more.

In separate groups of subjects, the investigators will use a 40-second sequence of rTMS called continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) over one of several brain regions of interest before the subject performs a reaching task known to involve sensory realignment (learning). If performance of the task is affected by cTBS for a given group (relative to the sham, or control, group), it means that brain region plays some role in that type of reaching task.

Conditions
Basic Science
Being tested
Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulationOther

    Real or sham continuous theta burst TMS (cTBS) will be delivered to a location on the head, determined by randomized group assignment. cTBS consists of 600 low-intensity TMS pulses delivered over 40 seconds in a pattern of 50 Hz triplets delivered at 5 Hz.

Study groups in NCT05079516
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Primary motor cortex--Exp 1ExperimentalTheta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over primary motor cortex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Somatosensory cortex--Exp 1ExperimentalTheta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over primary somatosensory cortex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Vertex sham--Exp 1Sham comparatorSham theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over the vertex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Anterior superior parietal lobule--Exp 2ExperimentalTheta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over Anterior superior parietal lobule.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Ventral premotor cortex--Exp 2ExperimentalTheta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over Ventral premotor cortex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Cerebellar cortex--Exp 2ExperimentalTheta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over cerebellar cortex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation
Vertex sham--Exp 2Sham comparatorSham theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) will be applied over the vertex.
Receives: Other: Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Realignment

    Measured by comparing where the subject points on a touchscreen when indicating perceived position of visual and proprioceptive targets early vs. late in the behavioral task.

    Measured: 1 day

Secondary outcomes (5)
  1. Visuo-proprioceptive weighting

    The degree to which participant relies on vision vs. proprioception when both are available. Measured by comparing where the subject points on a touchscreen when indicating perceived position of visual vs. proprioceptive targets.

    Measured: 1 day

  2. Target hand reaching

    Location participant points at with no performance feedback.

    Measured: 1 day.

  3. Target estimation variance

    Variance with which participant estimate visual and proprioceptive target positions. Computed from where subjects point at targets on a touchscreen.

    Measured: 1 day

  4. Motor cortex excitability (arms 1-3)

    mean motor evoked potential amplitude at SI1mV (stimulus intensity that elicits 1 mV response). Measured pre- and post-cTBS in Arms 1-3 only.

    Measured: 1 day

  5. Tactile sensitivity (arms 1-3)

    Two-point discrimination threshold on the target index fingertip. Measured pre- and post-cTBS in Arms 1-3 only.

    Measured: 1 day

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted15 Oct 2021
  2. Study start26 Oct 2021
  3. Primary completionDec 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completionDec 2026 (estimated)

Resources

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 N/A
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
The study includes two experiments. Experiment 1 includes Arms 1-3, and Experiment 2 includes Arms 4-7. Arm assignment will be random within each experiment.
Masking
Double blind
Who is masked
Participant, Investigator
Enrolment
300 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT05079516
Sponsor's protocol ID
12517
Other IDs
R01NS112367-01A1
Status last verified
Apr 2026
First submitted
21 Sep 2021
Last updated
4 May 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Yes: All IPD that underlie results published in peer-reviewed journals will be shared. Only de-identified data will be shared.

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation in people with Basic Science, run by Indiana University 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 7 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: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 4 May 2026. 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. Some participants in this study may receive a placebo. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact William P Hetrick, PhD (8128552620, whetrick@iu.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Realignment (time frame: 1 day). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?
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 4 May 2026.

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