BRAINSTORMING: A study protocol for a randomised double-blind clinical trial to assess the impact of concurrent brain st
- PDF / 1,344,900 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 60 Downloads / 185 Views
STUDY PROTOCOL
Open Access
BRAINSTORMING: A study protocol for a randomised double-blind clinical trial to assess the impact of concurrent brain stimulation (tDCS) and working memory training on cognitive performance in Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Sara Assecondi1,2* , Rong Hu3, Gail Eskes4, Michelle Read5, Chris Griffiths5 and Kim Shapiro1,2
Abstract Background: Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) admissions have an incidence of 385 per 100,000 of the population in the UK, and as brain injury often involves the frontal networks, cognitive domains affected are likely to be executive control, working memory, and problem-solving deficits, resulting in difficulty with everyday activities. The above observations make working memory, and related constructs such as attention and executive functioning attractive targets for neurorehabilitation. We propose a combined home-based rehabilitation protocol involving the concurrent administration of a working memory training program (adaptive N-back task) with non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to promote long-lasting modification of brain areas underlying working memory function. Method: Patients with a working memory deficit will be recruited and assigned to two age-matched groups receiving working memory training for 2 weeks: an active group, receiving tDCS (2 mA for 20 min), and a control group, receiving sham stimulation. After the end of the first 2 weeks, both groups will continue the working memory training for three more weeks. Outcome measures will be recorded at timepoints throughout the intervention, including baseline, after the 2 weeks of stimulation, at the end of the working memory training regimen and 1 month after the completion of the training. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Visual Experience Laboratory, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK 2 Center for Human Brian Health (CHBH), University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdoma
Data Loading...
