Overweight and Obesity — Neuromodulation With Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to Control Excess Weight
Citation(s)
Alonso-Alonso M Translating tDCS into the field of obesity: mechanism-driven approaches. Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Aug 27;7:512. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00512. eCollection 2013.
Blundell J, deGraaf K, Finlayson G, Halford JCG, Hetherington M, King N, et al , Chapter 8. Measuring food intake, hunger, satiety, and satiation in the laboratory, in: Allison DB and Baskin ML, (Eds.), Handbook of assessment methods for eating behaviors and weight-related problems: measures, theory, and researched, SAGE Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2009.
Ljubisavljevic M, Maxood K, Bjekic J, Oommen J, Nagelkerke N Long-Term Effects of Repeated Prefrontal Cortex Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Food Craving in Normal and Overweight Young Adults. Brain Stimul. 2016 Nov - Dec;9(6):826-833. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2016.07.002. Epub 2016 Jul 15.
Truong DQ, Magerowski G, Blackburn GL, Bikson M, Alonso-Alonso M Computational modeling of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in obesity: Impact of head fat and dose guidelines. Neuroimage Clin. 2013 May 31;2:759-66. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2013.05.011. eCollection 2013.
Interventional studies are often prospective and are specifically tailored to evaluate direct impacts of treatment or preventive measures on disease.
Observational studies are often retrospective and are used to assess potential causation in exposure-outcome relationships and therefore influence preventive methods.
Expanded access is a means by which manufacturers make investigational new drugs available, under certain circumstances, to treat a patient(s) with a serious disease or condition who cannot participate in a controlled clinical trial.
Clinical trials are conducted in a series of steps, called phases - each phase is designed to answer a separate research question.
Phase 1: Researchers test a new drug or treatment in a small group of people for the first time to evaluate its safety, determine a safe dosage range, and identify side effects.
Phase 2: The drug or treatment is given to a larger group of people to see if it is effective and to further evaluate its safety.
Phase 3: The drug or treatment is given to large groups of people to confirm its effectiveness, monitor side effects, compare it to commonly used treatments, and collect information that will allow the drug or treatment to be used safely.
Phase 4: Studies are done after the drug or treatment has been marketed to gather information on the drug's effect in various populations and any side effects associated with long-term use.