Brain Stimulation to the Hippocampus in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia - marked by delusions, hallucinations, and cognitive deficits - causes the most disability of any mental health condition, but existing treatments have significant side effect burden and are often ineffective. Disordered neural activity in the hippocampus likely contributes to schizophrenia symptoms, but to develop better therapies we need to understand whether hippocampal activity in schizophrenia can be systematically affected by non-invasive brain stimulation techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This proposal will investigate the use of connectivity-guided theta burst brain stimulation to specifically target hippocampal function in schizophrenia, offering insights into fundamental hippocampal processes, schizophrenia pathophysiology, and potential avenues to use brain stimulation as a therapeutic tool in this devastating illness.

NCT Number	NCT07010614
Lead Sponsor	Stanford University Collaborators: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Conditions	Schizophrenia Disorders, Mental Disorder, Psychotic Disorder
Enrollment	60 participants
Start Date	2025-10-01
Primary Completion	2027-09-30 (estimated)
Study Completion	2027-09-30 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-02-27