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| ID | Type | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17600425 | Other Grant/Funding Number | Research Grants Council |
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| Name | Class |
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| Research Grants Council, Hong Kong | OTHER |
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The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate how transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) affects emotion functions in young adults aged 18-35 from the local community, including both male and female participants. The main question[s] it aims to answer are:
Researchers will compare participants receiving tDCS on either the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) or right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) with those receiving sham stimulation to see if tDCS has a stronger effect on emotional functions.
Participants will:
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| Label | Type | Description | Intervention Names |
|---|---|---|---|
| IDLPFC tDCS | Experimental | This intervention is a 20 minutes per session, two-week tDCS neuromodulation of IDLPFC region (anode: F3, cathode: FP2) designed to reduce depressive symptoms via enhancing positive emotion functions, thereby reducing anhedonia. |
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| rVLPFC tDCS | Experimental | This intervention is a 20 minutes per session, two-week tDCS neuromodulation of rVLPFC region (anode: F6, cathode: FP1) designed to reduce depressive symptoms via regulating negative emotion functions, thereby reducing depressed mood. |
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| Sham tDCS | Sham Comparator | This is a 20 minutes per session, two-week Sham comparator of IDLPFC/rVLPFC region, participants will receive tDCS for 30 seconds at either IDLPFC/rVLPFC at the beginning of each session to stimulate real neuromodulation. |
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| Name | Type | Description | Arm Group Labels | Other Names |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation | Device | TDCS is a non-invasive, safe, inexpensive, convenient and effective method to modulate brain and emotion functions. During tDCS, a mild electric current is passed between the anodal and cathodal electrodes on the scalp, which respectively excites and inhibits local and downstream neuronal activity, as well as modulating interregional connectivity strength. Compared to other neurostimulation methods such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, tDCS side effects tend to be milder and transient, even if being administered for multiple sessions, making it suitable to be widely applied on clinical and subclinical populations. |
| Measure | Description | Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
| Depressive symptoms | The Beck Depression Inventory-II Chinese Version measures change in depressive symptoms. The total score range is 0-63, higher score indicates more severe depressive symptoms. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Measure | Description | Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
| Affective trait | The Chinese Affect Scale measures changes in positive and negative affective traits. Both the positive affect and the negative affect subscales have a score range of 0-40, with higher scores indicating higher levels of positive affect trait and negative affect trait respectively. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
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Inclusion Criteria:
Exclusion Criteria:
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| Name | Role | Phone | Extension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Associate Professor, Principle Investigator | Contact | +852-3917-8927 | rshao@hku.hk |
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| Facility | Status | City | State | ZIP | Country | Contacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The University of Hong Kong | Recruiting | Hong Kong | Hong Kong |
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| ID | Term |
|---|---|
| D059445 | Anhedonia |
| ID | Term |
|---|---|
| D019954 | Neurobehavioral Manifestations |
| D009461 | Neurologic Manifestations |
| D009422 | Nervous System Diseases |
| D012816 | Signs and Symptoms |
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| ID | Term |
|---|---|
| D065908 | Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation |
| ID | Term |
|---|---|
| D004599 | Electric Stimulation Therapy |
| D013812 | Therapeutics |
| D003295 | Convulsive Therapy |
| D013000 | Psychiatric Somatic Therapies |
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| Sham tDCS | Device | The sham tDCS delivers actual stimulation for 30 seconds only, while providing similar psychological perceptions to participants as the real intervention. Thus, the sham tDCS serves as an active control condition to the tDCS interventions. |
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| Anhedonia severity | The dimensional anhedonia rating scale measures change in anhedonia severity on distinct physical/social domain. The scale comprises four subscales: Hobbies (4 items; score range 0-16), Food/Drink (4 items; score range 0-16), Social Activities (4 items; score range 0-16), and Sensory Experience (5 items; score range 0-20), with higher scores on each subscale indicating less anhedonia severity within the corresponding domain. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Anhedonia symptoms | The Chapman Physical/Social Anhedonia scales assess change in anhedonia symptoms in physical and social domains. The Chapman Physical Anhedonia Scale consists of 61 true-false items with a total score range of 0-61, and the Chapman Social Anhedonia Scale consists of 40 true-false items with a total score range of 0-40. For both scales, higher scores indicate higher levels of anhedonia. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Behavioural motivation trait | The Behavioural Activation and Inhibition Scale measures change in reward-driven approaching and punishment-driven avoidance tendencies. The Behavioural Inhibition System scale consists of 7 items with a score range of 7-28, with higher scores indicating higher behavioural inhibition. The Behavioural Activation System scale comprises three subscales: Drive (4 items; score range 4-16), Fun Seeking (4 items; score range 4-16), and Reward Responsiveness (5 items; score range 5-20). Higher scores on each BAS subscale indicate higher levels of behavioural activation within the corresponding domain. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Emotion regulation function | The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire measures change in emotion regulation functions. The scale comprises nine subscales, Self-Blame, Acceptance, Rumination, Positive Refocusing, Refocus on Planning, Positive Reappraisal, Putting into Perspective, Catastrophising, and Other-Blame. Each consisting of 2 items with a score range of 2-10. Higher scores on each subscale indicate greater habitual use of emotion regulation strategy. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Coping to adversity | The Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced inventory measures change in people's coping strategies to hardships. The problem-focused subscale consist of 8 items (score range 4-32). The emotion-focused subscale consists of 12 items (score range 4-46). The avoidant/dysfunctional coping subscale consists of 8 items (score range 4-32). In each subscale, higher scores indicate greater use of the corresponding coping strategy. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Reward sensitivity | The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale assesses change in sensitivity towards both anticipatory and consummatory pleasurable experience. The scale comprises four subscales: Abstract Anticipatory Pleasure (4 items; score range 4-24), Contextual Anticipatory Pleasure (5 items; score range 5-30), Abstract Consummatory Pleasure (6 items; score range 6-36), and Contextual Consummatory Pleasure (4 items; score range 4-24), with higher scores on each subscale indicating greater capacity to experience pleasure from reward. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Apathy symptom | The Apathy Evaluation Scale-Self measures change in emotional indifference and apathy (lack of motivation). The scale consists of 18 items, yielding a total score range of 0-54, with higher scores indicating greater emotional indifference and higher levels of apathy. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Perceived loneliness | The brief UCLA Loneliness Scale measures change in the participants' subjective loneliness. The scale consists of 6 items yielding a total score range of 6-24, with higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived loneliness. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Stress level | The 10-item Perceived Stress Scale measures change in perceived stressful experiences. The scale consists of 10 items yielding a total score range of 0-40, with higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived stress. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Emotion ratings of words | The Emotion Rating Task measures changes in participants' feeling and motivation to positive social, positive non-social, negative social and negative non-social word stimuli. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Instrumental behavioural motivation | The Monetary Incentive Delay task measures change in behavioural motivations to obtain rewards or to avoid punishment. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Emotional inhibition control | The Emotion Stroop task measures change in participants' inhibition control of emotional processing. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Cognitive control function | The colour stroop measures change in cognitive control and inhibition functions. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| Working memory | The N-back task measures change in the participants' working memory capacity. | Baseline (Day 1), Post-Intervention (Day 15), 1-Month Follow-up (Day 45), 3-Month Follow-up (Day 105) |
| D013568 | Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms |
| D004191 | Behavioral Disciplines and Activities |
| D004597 | Electroshock |
| D011580 | Psychological Techniques |