the Treatment of Depression Clinical Trial
Official title:
Virtual Reality Combined With rTMS for the Treatment of Depression : a Randomized Clinical Trial.
Depression is a mood disorder affecting an individual in its entirety, altering its emotional
and intellectual functioning . The major form of depression is the most common psychiatric
disorder in Western countries. It is considered to be the most expensive psychiatric
neurological disease in Europe and is currently treated by different methods.
However, almost a third of depressed patients shows no clinical improvement. Advances in
neuroscience and understanding of neuromodulation have enabled the emergence of new
treatments such as the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) . It consists of
modulating the neuronal activity of a targeted brain region through a magnetic field applied
by a coil. Even though this form of treatment has proven to be effective, it appears that
more than half of depressed patients exhibited little to no response to it.
As brain regions targeted by TMS may also be stimulated beforehand by sensory afferent
signals, it was hypothesized that optimizing the effects of TMS with virtual reality is
possible through the activation of these brain regions with sensory stimuli holding emotional
valence (images, sounds) while using TMS concomitantly. Based on this new research premise,
the investigators propose, in the context of an open and controlled clinical trial, to use a
new media entitled virtual reality for displaying interactive virtual environments with
positive emotional valence ( field of flowers, green valley) to a group of depressed patients
undergoing TMS at the same time.
The study will include 66 depressed patients randomly assigned into two groups : TMS and
Virtual Reality Versus TMS alone. Any differences in therapeutic efficacy between the two
groups will be measured by questionnaires and brain functional imagery. This innovative and
therapeutic approach will allow us to better understand the appropriate processes for
modulating the neuronal activity in specific brain areas for treatment purposes.
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