Antidepressant-free unipolar melancholic depressed patients (at least stage 2 treatment-resistant) will be selected by a certified psychiatrist, who will administer (semi-)structured clinical interviews. Because concomitant antidepressant treatment can confound outcome results, all patients will go through a medication washout before entering the study and they will be free from any antidepressant, neuroleptic and mood stabilizer for at least two weeks before entering the treatment protocol. Only habitual benzodiazepine agents will be allowed.
STEP 1: Patients will be treated with in total 20 accelerated intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation (aiTBS) sessions (3000 pulses/session) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which will be spread over 4 days. On each stimulation day, a given patient will receive 5 sessions with a between-session delay of 15 minutes. Patients will be randomized to receive either the real aiTBS or sham treatment (first week). However, the sham group will receive real aiTBS treatment with 10 days' time interval. The investigators expect that real aiTBS treatment and not sham will result in a significant and clinical meaningful response.
STEP 2: To optimize treatment and reduce relapse following the iTBS treatment, in a stepped care approach, all patients then continue with cognitive control training (CCT) ten days later. This CCT consists of 20 sessions, spread over 4 weeks. Patients will be randomized to receive either real CCT or a control training. During this follow-up treatment, all patients will be prescribed antidepressant medication (SSRI) again. As iTBS treatment effects are known to decline over time, the investigators expect that combining aiTBS with a follow-up CCT therapy will stabilize the clinical effects over time compared to receiving the iTBS treatment alone.
For baseline comparisons, patients will be closely matched for gender and age with never-depressed, medication-free healthy volunteers. No volunteer will undergo treatment.
Condition | mood disorder, Major depression, Endogenous depression, Treatment Resistant Depression, Mood Disorders (Pediatric), Affective Disorders, Mood Disorders, major depressive disorders |
---|---|
Treatment | SSRI, aiTBS, CCT |
Clinical Study Identifier | NCT03288675 |
Sponsor | University Ghent |
Last Modified on | 21 January 2021 |
,
You have contacted , on
Your message has been sent to the study team at ,
Additional screening procedures may be conducted by the study team before you can be confirmed eligible to participate.
Learn moreIf you are confirmed eligible after full screening, you will be required to understand and sign the informed consent if you decide to enroll in the study. Once enrolled you may be asked to make scheduled visits over a period of time.
Learn moreComplete your scheduled study participation activities and then you are done. You may receive summary of study results if provided by the sponsor.
Learn moreEvery year hundreds of thousands of volunteers step forward to participate in research. Sign up as a volunteer and receive email notifications when clinical trials are posted in the medical category of interest to you.
Sign up as volunteer
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur, adipisicing elit. Ipsa vel nobis alias. Quae eveniet velit voluptate quo doloribus maxime et dicta in sequi, corporis quod. Ea, dolor eius? Dolore, vel!
No annotations made yet
Congrats! You have your own personal workspace now.