Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard MonitoringNCT05327387
Model-based Electrical Brain Stimulation
A study testing model-based electrical brain stimulation in people with Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard Monitoring, run by University of Southern California at 2 sites in United States.
Trial summary
Neuropsychiatric disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide with depressive disorders being one of the most disabling among them. Also, millions of patients do not respond to current medications or psychotherapy, which makes it critical to find an alternative therapy. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 years and older
- Conditions the study is for
- Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard Monitoring
- What is being tested?
- model-based electrical brain stimulation
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 25 participants
- Where
- 2 sitesUnited States
- Study dates
- 8 Feb 2022to 31 Mar 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 years and older
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Patients being evaluated for surgical treatment of medication refractory epilepsy and brain tumors will be studied. ONLY patients with electrodes implanted based on clinical criteria to locate their seizure focus will be studied. Most patients are healthy adults, outside of their epilepsy and/or brain tumor.
- Subjects >= 18 are only included in this study.
- All patients with the above conditions and with implanted electrode arrays who are willing to participate and able to cooperate and follow research instructions will be recruited. However, analysis of research recording data will focus on those subjects with an IQ >= 80, with no impairments of reading, naming, or articulation (to minimize confounds such as abnormal language processing that may affect their self-reporting with the questionnaire), and with no cerebral pathology affecting the cortical regions from which recordings are made.
Who cannot join
- Subjects < 18 years old will be excluded from this study due to the high concordance of developmental disorders (cognitive and language-related) in pediatric epilepsies.
- There will be no involvement of special classes of subjects, such as fetuses, neonates, pregnant women, children, prisoners, institutionalized individuals, or others who may be considered vulnerable populations.
- Patients who are unable to give informed consent due to a brain disorder will be excluded from the study, as it is very likely that they would be unable to carry out the tasks demanded by the study.
Trial locations and contacts
2 sites in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
HyeongChan Jo, PhD contact
United States2 sites, 2 recruiting
- Recruiting
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California, 90089
Maryam Shanechi, PhD, 213-740-1377, shanechi@usc.edu
Maryam M Shanechi, PhD
- Recruiting
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California, 94143
Edward F Chang, MD, 415-502-7346, edward.chang@ucsf.edu
Edward F Chang, MD
About this study
Neuropsychiatric disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide with depressive disorders being one of the most disabling among them. Also, millions of patients do not respond to current medications or psychotherapy, which makes it critical to find an alternative therapy. Applying electrical stimulation at various brain targets has shown promise but there is a critical need to improve efficacy.
Given inter- and intra-subject variabilities in neuropsychiatric disorders, this study aims to enable personalizing the stimulation therapy via i) tracking a patient's own symptoms based on their neural activity, and ii) a model of how their neural activity responds to stimulation therapy. The study will develop the modeling elements needed to realize a model-based personalized system for electrical brain stimulation to achieve this aim.
The study will provide proof-of-concept demonstration in epilepsy patients who already have intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) electrodes implanted for their standard clinical monitoring unrelated to this study, and who consent to being part of the study.
Read the detailed description
The investigators will conduct the study for each subject during their stay in the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU), which is dictated purely based on their standard clinical needs unrelated to this study. iEEG will be recorded from each patient throughout their stay in the EMU, during which the self-reports from them will be also intermittently collected using validated questionnaires that relate to depression symptoms.
The investigators will build subject-specific decoders that can track these depression symptoms from iEEG activity. The investigators will also apply electrical stimulation to learn a subject-specific input-output model that predicts the iEEG response to ongoing stimulation.
Successful completion of this study will help enable precisely-tailored deep brain stimulation therapies across diverse conditions and have a broad public health impact.
- Being tested
- model-based electrical brain stimulation
- Keywords
- deep brain stimulation, model-based stimulation, neural biomarkers of depression, neurotechnology, neuropsychiatric disorders, depression, brain-machine interface
- Medical subject headings
- Depression
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
model-based electrical brain stimulationOther
Electrical pulse train stimulation delivered to medication refractory epilepsy patients with electrodes already implanted based on clinical criteria for standard monitoring unrelated to this study. The delivery of the electrical brain stimulation can be guided by neural biomarkers of symptom levels computed from ongoing neural activity and by input-output models of neural response to stimulation therapy. The parameters of electrical stimulation will be constrained to be within clinically safe ranges.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| model-based electrical brain stimulation | Experimental | Not described Receives: Other: model-based electrical brain stimulation |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Decoded depression symptom ratings based on neural activity
A personalized decoder is trained for each patient using the recorded neural activity and self-reports. Then this decoder is used to estimate the biomarker purely from neural activity; that is, based on neural activity, it will return the estimation of depression symptom ratings (HAMD-6 or VAS self-reports)
Measured: 5-10 days
Secondary outcomes (2)
Hamilton Depression Rating (HAMD-6) self-reports
Hamilton Depression Rating (HAMD-6) is a widely used questionnaire that measures depressive state severity and intervention response. It can range from 0 to 22, with 22 corresponding to the worst depression symptom. Self-reports are obtained intermittently from the patient.
Measured: 5-10 days
Visual Analog Scale (VAS) self-reports
Visual Analog Scale (VAS) is a fast self-report validated against the Hamilton scale. It indicates the symptom level along a continuous line from none to worst symptom level. Self-reports are obtained intermittently from the patient.
Measured: 5-10 days
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted14 Apr 2022
- Study start8 Feb 2022
- Primary completion31 Mar 2026 (estimated)
- Study completion31 Mar 2026 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Publications (28)Papers the sponsor has linked to this study.
- Other trials for Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard MonitoringStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- 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 N/A
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Model description
- In each patient, the investigators will test the decoders of the symptom level and the input-output models of the neural response to stimulation therapy.
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 25 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of Southern California
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of California, San Francisco, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Maryam Shanechi, University of Southern California
- Investigators
- Maryam M Shanechi, PhD, Principal investigator, University of Southern California
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05327387
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- HS-21-00108
- Other IDs
- R01MH123770, DP2MH126378, R61MH135407
- Status last verified
- Jun 2025
- First submitted
- 24 Mar 2022
- Last updated
- 22 Sep 2025
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Yes: Upon completion of the study and after publication, fully de-identified IPD can be made available for research purposes.
Publications
Whiteford HA, Degenhardt L, Rehm J, Baxter AJ, Ferrari AJ, Erskine HE, Charlson FJ, Norman RE, Flaxman AD, Johns N, Burstein R, Murray CJ, Vos T. Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet. 2013 Nov 9;382(9904):1575-86. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61611-6. Epub 2013 Aug 29.
PubMed 23993280Rush AJ, Trivedi MH, Wisniewski SR, Nierenberg AA, Stewart JW, Warden D, Niederehe G, Thase ME, Lavori PW, Lebowitz BD, McGrath PJ, Rosenbaum JF, Sackeim HA, Kupfer DJ, Luther J, Fava M. Acute and longer-term outcomes in depressed outpatients requiring one or several treatment steps: a STAR*D report. Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Nov;163(11):1905-17. doi: 10.1176/ajp.2006.163.11.1905.
PubMed 17074942Mayberg HS, Lozano AM, Voon V, McNeely HE, Seminowicz D, Hamani C, Schwalb JM, Kennedy SH. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. Neuron. 2005 Mar 3;45(5):651-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2005.02.014.
PubMed 15748841Lozano AM, Mayberg HS, Giacobbe P, Hamani C, Craddock RC, Kennedy SH. Subcallosal cingulate gyrus deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Sep 15;64(6):461-7. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.05.034. Epub 2008 Jul 18.
PubMed 18639234Schlaepfer TE, Cohen MX, Frick C, Kosel M, Brodesser D, Axmacher N, Joe AY, Kreft M, Lenartz D, Sturm V. Deep brain stimulation to reward circuitry alleviates anhedonia in refractory major depression. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2008 Jan;33(2):368-77. doi: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301408. Epub 2007 Apr 11.
PubMed 17429407Malone DA Jr, Dougherty DD, Rezai AR, Carpenter LL, Friehs GM, Eskandar EN, Rauch SL, Rasmussen SA, Machado AG, Kubu CS, Tyrka AR, Price LH, Stypulkowski PH, Giftakis JE, Rise MT, Malloy PF, Salloway SP, Greenberg BD. Deep brain stimulation of the ventral capsule/ventral striatum for treatment-resistant depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Feb 15;65(4):267-75. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.08.029. Epub 2008 Oct 8.
PubMed 18842257Bewernick BH, Kayser S, Sturm V, Schlaepfer TE. Long-term effects of nucleus accumbens deep brain stimulation in treatment-resistant depression: evidence for sustained efficacy. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2012 Aug;37(9):1975-85. doi: 10.1038/npp.2012.44. Epub 2012 Apr 4.
PubMed 22473055Holtzheimer PE, Kelley ME, Gross RE, Filkowski MM, Garlow SJ, Barrocas A, Wint D, Craighead MC, Kozarsky J, Chismar R, Moreines JL, Mewes K, Posse PR, Gutman DA, Mayberg HS. Subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant unipolar and bipolar depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2012 Feb;69(2):150-8. doi: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.1456. Epub 2012 Jan 2.
PubMed 22213770Schlaepfer TE, Bewernick BH, Kayser S, Madler B, Coenen VA. Rapid effects of deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant major depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2013 Jun 15;73(12):1204-12. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.01.034. Epub 2013 Apr 3.
PubMed 23562618Dougherty DD, Rezai AR, Carpenter LL, Howland RH, Bhati MT, O'Reardon JP, Eskandar EN, Baltuch GH, Machado AD, Kondziolka D, Cusin C, Evans KC, Price LH, Jacobs K, Pandya M, Denko T, Tyrka AR, Brelje T, Deckersbach T, Kubu C, Malone DA Jr. A Randomized Sham-Controlled Trial of Deep Brain Stimulation of the Ventral Capsule/Ventral Striatum for Chronic Treatment-Resistant Depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2015 Aug 15;78(4):240-8. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.11.023. Epub 2014 Dec 13.
PubMed 25726497Holtzheimer PE, Husain MM, Lisanby SH, Taylor SF, Whitworth LA, McClintock S, Slavin KV, Berman J, McKhann GM, Patil PG, Rittberg BR, Abosch A, Pandurangi AK, Holloway KL, Lam RW, Honey CR, Neimat JS, Henderson JM, DeBattista C, Rothschild AJ, Pilitsis JG, Espinoza RT, Petrides G, Mogilner AY, Matthews K, Peichel D, Gross RE, Hamani C, Lozano AM, Mayberg HS. Subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: a multisite, randomised, sham-controlled trial. Lancet Psychiatry. 2017 Nov;4(11):839-849. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30371-1. Epub 2017 Oct 4.
PubMed 28988904Dandekar MP, Fenoy AJ, Carvalho AF, Soares JC, Quevedo J. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: an integrative review of preclinical and clinical findings and translational implications. Mol Psychiatry. 2018 May;23(5):1094-1112. doi: 10.1038/mp.2018.2. Epub 2018 Feb 27.
PubMed 29483673Bergfeld IO, Mantione M, Hoogendoorn ML, Ruhe HG, Notten P, van Laarhoven J, Visser I, Figee M, de Kwaasteniet BP, Horst F, Schene AH, van den Munckhof P, Beute G, Schuurman R, Denys D. Deep Brain Stimulation of the Ventral Anterior Limb of the Internal Capsule for Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016 May 1;73(5):456-64. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.0152.
PubMed 27049915Kennedy SH, Giacobbe P, Rizvi SJ, Placenza FM, Nishikawa Y, Mayberg HS, Lozano AM. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: follow-up after 3 to 6 years. Am J Psychiatry. 2011 May;168(5):502-10. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10081187. Epub 2011 Feb 1.
PubMed 21285143Blomstedt P, Naesstrom M, Bodlund O. Deep brain stimulation in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and medial forebrain bundle in a patient with major depressive disorder and anorexia nervosa. Clin Case Rep. 2017 Mar 31;5(5):679-684. doi: 10.1002/ccr3.856. eCollection 2017 May.
PubMed 28469875
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 22 Sep 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Model-based Electrical Brain Stimulation
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05327387
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- HS-21-00108
- Keywords
- deep brain stimulation, model-based stimulation, neural biomarkers of depression, neurotechnology, neuropsychiatric disorders, depression, brain-machine interface
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Enrolment
- 25 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- University of California, San Francisco, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Study start
- 8 Feb 2022 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 31 Mar 2026 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 31 Mar 2026 (estimated)
- First posted
- 14 Apr 2022 (actual)
- 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.
Neuropsychiatric disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide with depressive disorders being one of the most disabling among them. Also, millions of patients do not respond to current medications or psychotherapy, which makes it critical to find an alternative therapy. Applying electrical stimulation at various brain targets has shown promise but there is a critical need to improve efficacy.
Given inter- and intra-subject variabilities in neuropsychiatric disorders, this study aims to enable personalizing the stimulation therapy via i) tracking a patient's own symptoms based on their neural activity, and ii) a model of how their neural activity responds to stimulation therapy. The study will develop the modeling elements needed to realize a model-based personalized system for electrical brain stimulation to achieve this aim.
The study will provide proof-of-concept demonstration in epilepsy patients who already have intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) electrodes implanted for their standard clinical monitoring unrelated to this study, and who consent to being part of the study.
Detailed description
The investigators will conduct the study for each subject during their stay in the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU), which is dictated purely based on their standard clinical needs unrelated to this study. iEEG will be recorded from each patient throughout their stay in the EMU, during which the self-reports from them will be also intermittently collected using validated questionnaires that relate to depression symptoms.
The investigators will build subject-specific decoders that can track these depression symptoms from iEEG activity. The investigators will also apply electrical stimulation to learn a subject-specific input-output model that predicts the iEEG response to ongoing stimulation.
Successful completion of this study will help enable precisely-tailored deep brain stimulation therapies across diverse conditions and have a broad public health impact.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Not applicable
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 1
- Model description
- In each patient, the investigators will test the decoders of the symptom level and the input-output models of the neural response to stimulation therapy.
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| model-based electrical brain stimulation | Experimental | Other: model-based electrical brain stimulation |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (3 listed)
- Patients being evaluated for surgical treatment of medication refractory epilepsy and brain tumors will be studied. ONLY patients with electrodes implanted based on clinical criteria to locate their seizure focus will be studied. Most patients are healthy adults, outside of their epilepsy and/or brain tumor.
- Subjects >= 18 are only included in this study.
- All patients with the above conditions and with implanted electrode arrays who are willing to participate and able to cooperate and follow research instructions will be recruited. However, analysis of research recording data will focus on those subjects with an IQ >= 80, with no impairments of reading, naming, or articulation (to minimize confounds such as abnormal language processing that may affect their self-reporting with the questionnaire), and with no cerebral pathology affecting the cortical regions from which recordings are made.
Key exclusion criteria (3 listed)
- Subjects < 18 years old will be excluded from this study due to the high concordance of developmental disorders (cognitive and language-related) in pediatric epilepsies.
- There will be no involvement of special classes of subjects, such as fetuses, neonates, pregnant women, children, prisoners, institutionalized individuals, or others who may be considered vulnerable populations.
- Patients who are unable to give informed consent due to a brain disorder will be excluded from the study, as it is very likely that they would be unable to carry out the tasks demanded by the study.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| model-based electrical brain stimulationElectrical pulse train stimulation delivered to medication refractory epilepsy patients with electrodes already implanted based on clinical criteria for standard monitoring unrelated to this study. The delivery of the electrical brain stimulation can be guided by neural biomarkers of symptom levels computed from ongoing neural activity and by input-output models of neural response to stimulation therapy. The parameters of electrical stimulation will be constrained to be within clinically safe ranges. | Other | model-based electrical brain stimulation |
Primary outcome
Decoded depression symptom ratings based on neural activity
Time frame: 5-10 days
A personalized decoder is trained for each patient using the recorded neural activity and self-reports. Then this decoder is used to estimate the biomarker purely from neural activity; that is, based on neural activity, it will return the estimation of depression symptom ratings (HAMD-6 or VAS self-reports)
2 secondary outcomes
Hamilton Depression Rating (HAMD-6) self-reports
Time frame: 5-10 days
Visual Analog Scale (VAS) self-reports
Time frame: 5-10 days
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 22 Sep 2025.
- Background: PubMed 23993280Whiteford HA, Degenhardt L, Rehm J, Baxter AJ, Ferrari AJ, Erskine HE, Charlson FJ, Norman RE, Flaxman AD, Johns N, Burstein R, Murray CJ, Vos T. Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet. 2013 Nov 9;382(9904):1575-86. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61611-6. Epub 2013 Aug 29.
- Background: PubMed 17074942Rush AJ, Trivedi MH, Wisniewski SR, Nierenberg AA, Stewart JW, Warden D, Niederehe G, Thase ME, Lavori PW, Lebowitz BD, McGrath PJ, Rosenbaum JF, Sackeim HA, Kupfer DJ, Luther J, Fava M. Acute and longer-term outcomes in depressed outpatients requiring one or several treatment steps: a STAR*D report. Am J Psychiatry. 2006 Nov;163(11):1905-17. doi: 10.1176/ajp.2006.163.11.1905.
- Background: PubMed 15748841Mayberg HS, Lozano AM, Voon V, McNeely HE, Seminowicz D, Hamani C, Schwalb JM, Kennedy SH. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. Neuron. 2005 Mar 3;45(5):651-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2005.02.014.
- Background: PubMed 18639234Lozano AM, Mayberg HS, Giacobbe P, Hamani C, Craddock RC, Kennedy SH. Subcallosal cingulate gyrus deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Sep 15;64(6):461-7. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.05.034. Epub 2008 Jul 18.
- Background: PubMed 17429407Schlaepfer TE, Cohen MX, Frick C, Kosel M, Brodesser D, Axmacher N, Joe AY, Kreft M, Lenartz D, Sturm V. Deep brain stimulation to reward circuitry alleviates anhedonia in refractory major depression. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2008 Jan;33(2):368-77. doi: 10.1038/sj.npp.1301408. Epub 2007 Apr 11.
- Background: PubMed 18842257Malone DA Jr, Dougherty DD, Rezai AR, Carpenter LL, Friehs GM, Eskandar EN, Rauch SL, Rasmussen SA, Machado AG, Kubu CS, Tyrka AR, Price LH, Stypulkowski PH, Giftakis JE, Rise MT, Malloy PF, Salloway SP, Greenberg BD. Deep brain stimulation of the ventral capsule/ventral striatum for treatment-resistant depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Feb 15;65(4):267-75. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.08.029. Epub 2008 Oct 8.
- Background: PubMed 22473055Bewernick BH, Kayser S, Sturm V, Schlaepfer TE. Long-term effects of nucleus accumbens deep brain stimulation in treatment-resistant depression: evidence for sustained efficacy. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2012 Aug;37(9):1975-85. doi: 10.1038/npp.2012.44. Epub 2012 Apr 4.
- Background: PubMed 22213770Holtzheimer PE, Kelley ME, Gross RE, Filkowski MM, Garlow SJ, Barrocas A, Wint D, Craighead MC, Kozarsky J, Chismar R, Moreines JL, Mewes K, Posse PR, Gutman DA, Mayberg HS. Subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant unipolar and bipolar depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2012 Feb;69(2):150-8. doi: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.1456. Epub 2012 Jan 2.
- Background: PubMed 23562618Schlaepfer TE, Bewernick BH, Kayser S, Madler B, Coenen VA. Rapid effects of deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant major depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2013 Jun 15;73(12):1204-12. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.01.034. Epub 2013 Apr 3.
- Background: PubMed 25726497Dougherty DD, Rezai AR, Carpenter LL, Howland RH, Bhati MT, O'Reardon JP, Eskandar EN, Baltuch GH, Machado AD, Kondziolka D, Cusin C, Evans KC, Price LH, Jacobs K, Pandya M, Denko T, Tyrka AR, Brelje T, Deckersbach T, Kubu C, Malone DA Jr. A Randomized Sham-Controlled Trial of Deep Brain Stimulation of the Ventral Capsule/Ventral Striatum for Chronic Treatment-Resistant Depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2015 Aug 15;78(4):240-8. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.11.023. Epub 2014 Dec 13.
- Background: PubMed 28988904Holtzheimer PE, Husain MM, Lisanby SH, Taylor SF, Whitworth LA, McClintock S, Slavin KV, Berman J, McKhann GM, Patil PG, Rittberg BR, Abosch A, Pandurangi AK, Holloway KL, Lam RW, Honey CR, Neimat JS, Henderson JM, DeBattista C, Rothschild AJ, Pilitsis JG, Espinoza RT, Petrides G, Mogilner AY, Matthews K, Peichel D, Gross RE, Hamani C, Lozano AM, Mayberg HS. Subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: a multisite, randomised, sham-controlled trial. Lancet Psychiatry. 2017 Nov;4(11):839-849. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30371-1. Epub 2017 Oct 4.
- Background: PubMed 29483673Dandekar MP, Fenoy AJ, Carvalho AF, Soares JC, Quevedo J. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: an integrative review of preclinical and clinical findings and translational implications. Mol Psychiatry. 2018 May;23(5):1094-1112. doi: 10.1038/mp.2018.2. Epub 2018 Feb 27.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Yes. Upon completion of the study and after publication, fully de-identified IPD can be made available for research purposes.
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.
HyeongChan Jo, PhD contact
Maryam M Shanechi, PhD principal investigator
University of Southern California
2 sites in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing model-based electrical brain stimulation in people with Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard Monitoring, run by University of Southern California at 2 sites 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 3 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 22 Sep 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 2 sites 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.
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 Maryam M Shanechi, PhD (213-740-1377, shanechi@usc.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Decoded depression symptom ratings based on neural activity (time frame: 5-10 days). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT05327387, which also lists 28 linked publications.
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 22 Sep 2025.