ProjectESPRIT C2 – Verbund ESPRIT im Forschungsnetz für psychische Erkrankungen - Effektivität der transkraniellen…
Basic data
Acronym:
ESPRIT C2
Title:
Verbund ESPRIT im Forschungsnetz für psychische Erkrankungen - Effektivität der transkraniellen Gleichstromstimulation zur Verbesserung des kognitiven Trainings bei Schizophrenie
Duration:
01/02/2019 to 31/01/2020
Abstract / short description:
Impairments of cognition are a core, severely disabling feature of schizophrenia leading to poor long-term outcome with no established treatment available. Particularly impaired executive functions (e.g working memory) are frequently observed and are consistently associated with reduced activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Deficits in those functions have been shown to be closely related to negative symptoms, thought disorder, and functional outcome in schizophrenia leading to the notion that frontal lobe dysfunction is crucially important in schizophrenic psychopathology. Cognitive training has been used to improve cognitive deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Noninvasive brain stimulation like tDCS can enhance executive functions like working memory in healthy subjects as well as in patients. Therefore, the specific combination of tDCS and cognitive training is promising to enhance the effects of cognitive training in schizophrenia. To identify the optimal parameters for this intervention in patients with schizophrenia, we first test the effects of different polarities, stimulation intensities and laterality on working-memory performance in a sham-controlled cross-over design (n=128). In the next step, we apply the most effective tDCS-parameters as identified in the previous experiments in an enhanced-training paradigm. In order to provide evidence for the specific effect of tDCS enhanced cognitive training we compare three conditions: i) working-memory training during tDCS, ii) working-memory training during sham-stimulation, and iii) tDCS alone.
Involved staff
Managers
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Hospitals and clinical institutes, Faculty of Medicine
Hospitals and clinical institutes, Faculty of Medicine
Local organizational units
Department of General psychiatry and psychotherapy with outpatient clinic
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Hospitals and clinical institutes, Faculty of Medicine
Hospitals and clinical institutes, Faculty of Medicine
Funders
Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany