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Medial-prefrontal Enhancement During Schizophrenia Systems Imaging

University of California, San Francisco · with National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) · NCT04807530

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Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 18–64 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
160
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
November 12, 2020
Record last updated
August 29, 2025

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

This randomized controlled trial in healthy controls (HC) and patients with schizophrenia (SZ) aims to examine 1) the underlying cognitive and neural cause of self-agency deficits in SZ; 2) the responsiveness to a novel navigated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (nrTMS) target in the medial/superior prefrontal cortex (mPFC); and 3) how modulation of mPFC activity impacts the larger self-agency network to mediate changes in self-agency judgments. Our overall hypothesis is that increased mPFC excitability by active high-frequency nrTMS in HC and SZ will induce behavioral improvements in self-agency and neural changes in the larger self-agency network that will generalize to improvements in overall cognition, symptoms and daily functioning, and will likely lead to the development of new effective neuromodulation therapies in patients with schizophrenia.

Being studied: TMS

Conditions: Schizophrenia

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria

Inclusion Criteria

All Subjects

  • Good general physical health
  • English is first language
  • No neurological disorder
  • Meets MRI criteria
  • No current alcohol or substance use disorder

Schizophrenia participants

  • Schizophrenia diagnosis of any illness duration,
  • Clinical stability, defined as 12 weeks outpatient status and 4 weeks low to moderate dose of antipsychotic medication (\<1000 mg. chlorpromazine equivalents), plus stable doses of all other psychotropic medications

Exclusion Criteria

All Subjects

  • Implanted metallic parts of implanted electronic devices
  • Pregnant or trying to become pregnant
  • Any condition that would prevent the subject from giving voluntary informed consent
  • Scalp wounds or infections
  • Claustrophobia precluding MRI
  • Ongoing seizures
  • Neurological disorder

Recruiting US locations

  • UCSF

    San Francisco, CA 94143

    Site contact: Miriam Mathew, PhD · miriam.mathew@ucsf.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Karuna Subramaniam, Ph.D · 415-221-4810 · karuna.subramaniam@ucsf.edu
  • Miriam Mathew, PhD · miriam.mathew@ucsf.edu
All mental health studies in California →
Medial-prefrontal Enhancement During Schizophrenia Systems Imaging (NCT04807530) | Bored Studies