Acute and Long Term Effects of VNS on Memory in Patients With Refractory Epilepsy

NCT ID: NCT05031208

Last Updated: 2023-05-06

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

16 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2018-11-22

Study Completion Date

2020-08-28

Brief Summary

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Refractory epilepsy patients implanted with a vagus nerve stimulator perform a memory test at baseline in three conditions: invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) and sham stimulation. After 6 weeks of VNS treatment, the memory test is repeated in two condition: invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) and sham stimulation.

The endpoint of this experiment is assessing the effect of VNS and taVNS on memory performance.

Detailed Description

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Previous studies underlined the potential of both invasive as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation to ameliorate certain cognitive functions.

In this randomized, controlled cross-over within-subjects study, a memory test is conducted in patients with refractory epilepsy who are implanted with a vagus nerve stimulation.

The memory test consists out of a word recognition paradigm based on the study of Clarck et al. published in 1999 in Nature Neuroscience. Testing is performed at baseline (before start of the stimulation) and after 6 weeks of treatment with vagus nerve stimulation.

During the first session, the patients complete the word recognition task during three interventions:

* Invasive vagus nerve stimulation
* Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (cymba concha)
* Sham vagus nerve stimulation (no stimulation)

During the second session, the patients complete the word recognition task during two interventions:

* Invasive vagus nerve stimulation
* Sham vagus nerve stimulation (no stimulation)

The goal is to investigate if invasive vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous nerve stimulation can influence (i.e. improve) the performance on the memory task and if this performance is improved after 6 weeks of VNS treatment.

Conditions

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Refractory Epilepsy

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

CROSSOVER

Primary Study Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Participants

Study Groups

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Vagus nerve stimulation

Invasive vagus nerve stimulation

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Memory task

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Word recognition task

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation

Cymba concha stimulation

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Memory task

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Word recognition task

Sham vagus nerve stimulation

No vagus nerve stimulation

Group Type SHAM_COMPARATOR

Memory task

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Word recognition task

Interventions

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Memory task

Word recognition task

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Refractory epilepsy
* Treated with vagus nerve stimulation
* IQ \>= 70 and able to perform the memory task

Exclusion Criteria

* IQ \< 70
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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University Hospital, Ghent

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Locations

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University Hospital

Ghent, , Belgium

Site Status

Countries

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Belgium

References

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Clark KB, Naritoku DK, Smith DC, Browning RA, Jensen RA. Enhanced recognition memory following vagus nerve stimulation in human subjects. Nat Neurosci. 1999 Jan;2(1):94-8. doi: 10.1038/4600.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 10195186 (View on PubMed)

Jacobs HI, Riphagen JM, Razat CM, Wiese S, Sack AT. Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation boosts associative memory in older individuals. Neurobiol Aging. 2015 May;36(5):1860-7. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2015.02.023. Epub 2015 Feb 28.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25805212 (View on PubMed)

Colzato LS, Ritter SM, Steenbergen L. Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) enhances divergent thinking. Neuropsychologia. 2018 Mar;111:72-76. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.01.003. Epub 2018 Jan 8.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 29326067 (View on PubMed)

Steenbergen L, Sellaro R, Stock AK, Verkuil B, Beste C, Colzato LS. RETRACTED: Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) enhances response selection during action cascading processes. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2015 Jun;25(6):773-8. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2015.03.015. Epub 2015 Mar 30.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25869158 (View on PubMed)

Mertens A, Gadeyne S, Lescrauwaet E, Carrette E, Meurs A, De Herdt V, Dewaele F, Raedt R, Miatton M, Boon P, Vonck K. The potential of invasive and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation to improve verbal memory performance in epilepsy patients. Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 7;12(1):1984. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-05842-3.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 35132096 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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EC/2016/0786

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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