Skip to content
Bored Studies
RecruitingAccepts healthy volunteers

Stimulation-Based Modulation of Spinal and Cortical Sensory Pathways

Peter C. Gerszten, MD · NCT07401186

View Study & Apply (opens in a new tab)

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 21–75 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
15
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
May 26, 2026
Record last updated
June 4, 2026

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

What the study is about

The goal of this study is to assess cervical (neck) reflexes by intra-operatively stimulating the neck nerve roots to evoke motor responses through their connections to spinal motoneurons. This data is critical to reveal changes to the spinal sensory modulating circuitry in neurological disorders like stroke.

Being studied: Bipolar Neural Stimulation Electrode

Conditions: Stroke; Able Bodied

Eligibility criteria

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

Show full criteria

Inclusion Criteria

  • All Subjects: Ages between 21 and 75 years. The minimum age is selected to age match control subjects with stroke subjects. In addition, participants outside this age range may be at an increased medical risk.
  • Control subjects: Patients undergoing elective posterior cervical spinal surgery that includes a decompressive laminectomy, and who will have electrophysiological monitoring performed as part of the standard of care for their procedure.
  • Stroke subjects: Participants must have a suffered a single, ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke more than 6 months prior to the time of enrollment with hemiparesis as a result, is undergoing a cervical epidural lead implant or undergoing elective posterior cervical spinal surgery that includes a decompressive laminectomy with electrophysiological monitoring performed as part of the standard of care.

Exclusion Criteria

  • Patients will be excluded from the study if they have any known neurological diseases other than stroke, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy, spinal cord injury, autoimmune neuropathy, or sensory nerve disorders, that may affect the integrity of cervical sensory afferents.
  • Only patients that are eligible for surgery will be enrolled. Therefore this automatically include as exclusion criteria: pregnancy and other clinical conditions eligible for surgery.
  • Participants must not be on anti-spasticity or anti-epileptic medications.

Recruiting US locations

  • University of Pittsburgh

    Pittsburgh, PA 15213

    Site contact: Peter C Gerszten, MD · 412-647-0958 · gersztenpc@upmc.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Peter C Gerszten, MD · 412-647-0958 · gerspc@upmc.edu
  • Elvira Pirondini, PhD · 412-636-0595 · elvirap@pitt.edu
All neurology studies in Pennsylvania →
Stimulation-Based Modulation of Spinal and Cortical Sensory Pathways (NCT07401186) | Bored Studies