Brain Stimulation to the Hippocampus in Schizophrenia
Start Date
10/1/2025
Completion Date
9/30/2027
Summary
Schizophrenia - marked by delusions, hallucinations, and cognitive deficits - causes the most disability of any mental health condition, but existing treatments have significant side effect burden and are often ineffective. Disordered neural activity in the hippocampus likely contributes to schizophrenia symptoms, but to develop better therapies we need to understand whether hippocampal activity in schizophrenia can be systematically affected by non-invasive brain stimulation techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This proposal will investigate the use of connectivity-guided theta burst brain stimulation to specifically target hippocampal function in schizophrenia, offering insights into fundamental hippocampal processes, schizophrenia pathophysiology, and potential avenues to use brain stimulation as a therapeutic tool in this devastating illness.
Eligibility Criteria
Age Range: 18 years to 65 years
Interventions
Intracranial electrodes
TMS
TMS sham
Conditions
Locations
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305
United States