Clinical trial NCT04035655: Sub-study of the NEURODOC Project : Neurophysiological Evaluation of a Routine Care Open Label tDCS Session
Official title: Sub-study of the NEURODOC Project (Electrophysiological Evaluation of Consciousness in Patients With Disorders of Consciousness During Standard Care Procedures): Neurophysiological Evaluation of a Routine Care Open Label tDCS Session
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Disorder of Consciousness
Traumatic Brain Injury
Anoxic Brain Injury
Stroke
Keywords: Disorders of consciousness
Transcranial direct current stimulation
Electroencephalography
Electrophysiological signatures of consciousness
Coma Recovery Scale - Revised
Lead sponsor: Groupe Hospitalier Pitie-Salpetriere
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2019-07-29
Enrollment: 66
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Intervention model description: Electrophysiological evaluation of a routine care intervention: single session of left dorso-lateral transcranial direct current stimulation
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: Limited treatments are available to improve consciousness in severely brain injured patients. Transcranial Direct Current stimulation (tDCS) is one of the few therapeutics that showed evidence of efficacy to increase level of consciousness and functional communication in some Minimally Conscious State (MCS) patients, and in some Vegetative State (VS) patients.

However the mechanisms by which tDCS improves consciousness are poorly understood and the electrophysiological effects of such a stimulation have never been studied in disorders of consciousness patients.

In this study, the investigators will use detailed clinical examinations and electrophysiological assessments (quantitative high-density EEG and event-related potentials) to assess the effect of a open-label single session of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tDCS stimulation administered as routine care.

Detailed description: Limited treatments are available to improve consciousness in severely brain injured patients. Transcranial Direct Current stimulation (tDCS) is one of the few therapeutics that showed evidence of efficacy to increase level of consciousness and functional communication in some Minimally Conscious State (MCS) patients, and in some Vegetative State (VS) patients (1, 2, 3, 4), with no side effects reported.

However the mechanisms by which tDCS improves consciousness are poorly understood and the electrophysiological effects of the stimulation have never been studied in disorders of consciousness patients.

In this study, the investigators will use detailed clinical examinations (Coma Recovery Scale - Revised (5)) and electrophysiological assessments (quantitative high-density EEG and event-related potentials) (6, 7) and event-related potentials (8, 9) together with a standard morphological MRI to assess the effect of a open-label single session of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tDCS stimulation administered as routine care.

The primary goal is to investigate electrophysiological response to tDCS and its relation to behavioral response to better understand how tDCS affects consciousness in disorders of consciousness patients.

References:

1. Angelakis, E. et al. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Effects in Disorders of Consciousness. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 95, 283-289 (2014).
2. Thibaut, A., Bruno, M.-A., Ledoux, D., Demertzi, A. \& Laureys, S. tDCS in patients with disorders of consciousness: sham-controlled randomized double-blind study. Neurology 82, 1112-1118 (2014).
3. Thibaut, A. et al. Controlled clinical trial of repeated prefrontal tDCS in patients with chronic minimally conscious state. Brain Inj. 1-9 (2017). doi:10.1080/02699052.2016.1274776
4. Martens, G. et al. Randomized controlled trial of home-based 4-week tDCS in chronic minimally conscious state. Brain Stimulat. (2018). doi:10.1016/j.brs.2018.04.021
5. Giacino, J. T. \& Kalmar, K. Diagnostic and prognostic guidelines for the vegetative and minimally conscious states. Neuropsychol. Rehabil. 15, 166-174 (2005).
6. Sitt, J. D. et al. Large scale screening of neural signatures of consciousness in patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. Brain 137, 2258-2270 (2014).
7. Engemann, D. A. et al. Robust EEG-based cross-site and cross-protocol classification of states of consciousness. Brain J. Neurol. 141, 3179-3192 (2018).
8. Bekinschtein, T. A. et al. Neural signature of the conscious processing of auditory regularities. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106, 1672-1677 (2009).
9. Faugeras, F. et al. Event related potentials elicited by violations of auditory regularities in patients with impaired consciousness. Neuropsychologia 50, 403-418 (2012).

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age between 18 and 80 years
* Disorder of consciousness assessed by CRS-R (VS, MCS, exitMCS)
* Patients with stable clinical examination (even in intensive care unit)
* Structural brain injury confirmed by cerebral imaging (MRI or TDM)

Exclusion Criteria:

* Refractory status epilepticus
* Known preexisting severe neurodegenerative disease (ie: Alzheimer disease, Lewy body dementia, ...)
* MRI contraindication: metallic intra-cranial implants, pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, cranial prosthesis
* Pregnant, parturient or breastfeeding women

Primary outcomes:
measure: Support vector machine multivariate prediction of consciousness from resting state EEG markers
timeFrame: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)
measure: Evoked response potential during auditory oddball paradigm
timeFrame: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Resting state EEG individual markers
timeFrame: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)
measure: State of consciousness
timeFrame: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Paris
country: France
facility: Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière
Study officials:
affiliation: Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
name: Lionel Naccache, MD, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Angelakis E, Liouta E, Andreadis N, Korfias S, Ktonas P, Stranjalis G, Sakas DE. Transcranial direct current stimulation effects in disorders of consciousness. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2014 Feb;95(2):283-9. doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2013.09.002. Epub 2013 Sep 11.
citation: Thibaut A, Bruno MA, Ledoux D, Demertzi A, Laureys S. tDCS in patients with disorders of consciousness: sham-controlled randomized double-blind study. Neurology. 2014 Apr 1;82(13):1112-8. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000260. Epub 2014 Feb 26.
citation: Thibaut A, Wannez S, Donneau AF, Chatelle C, Gosseries O, Bruno MA, Laureys S. Controlled clinical trial of repeated prefrontal tDCS in patients with chronic minimally conscious state. Brain Inj. 2017;31(4):466-474. doi: 10.1080/02699052.2016.1274776. Epub 2017 Mar 10.
citation: Martens G, Lejeune N, O'Brien AT, Fregni F, Martial C, Wannez S, Laureys S, Thibaut A. Randomized controlled trial of home-based 4-week tDCS in chronic minimally conscious state. Brain Stimul. 2018 Sep-Oct;11(5):982-990. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2018.04.021. Epub 2018 May 2.
citation: Giacino JT, Kalmar K. Diagnostic and prognostic guidelines for the vegetative and minimally conscious states. Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2005 Jul-Sep;15(3-4):166-74. doi: 10.1080/09602010443000498.
citation: Sitt JD, King JR, El Karoui I, Rohaut B, Faugeras F, Gramfort A, Cohen L, Sigman M, Dehaene S, Naccache L. Large scale screening of neural signatures of consciousness in patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. Brain. 2014 Aug;137(Pt 8):2258-70. doi: 10.1093/brain/awu141. Epub 2014 Jun 11.
citation: Engemann DA, Raimondo F, King JR, Rohaut B, Louppe G, Faugeras F, Annen J, Cassol H, Gosseries O, Fernandez-Slezak D, Laureys S, Naccache L, Dehaene S, Sitt JD. Robust EEG-based cross-site and cross-protocol classification of states of consciousness. Brain. 2018 Nov 1;141(11):3179-3192. doi: 10.1093/brain/awy251.
citation: Bekinschtein TA, Dehaene S, Rohaut B, Tadel F, Cohen L, Naccache L. Neural signature of the conscious processing of auditory regularities. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Feb 3;106(5):1672-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809667106. Epub 2009 Jan 21.
citation: Faugeras F, Rohaut B, Weiss N, Bekinschtein T, Galanaud D, Puybasset L, Bolgert F, Sergent C, Cohen L, Dehaene S, Naccache L. Event related potentials elicited by violations of auditory regularities in patients with impaired consciousness. Neuropsychologia. 2012 Feb;50(3):403-18. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.12.015. Epub 2012 Jan 3.