This is a single institution, single-blinded, long-term exploratory study using participant as his/her own control to evaluate and compare the potential analgesic effect on experimental heat pain of Transcutaneous Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). TMS will be delivered by a commercially available device (Rapid2, Magstim Corp) at three different cortical target sites and one sham target site in healthy participants 18-88 years of age. The quantitative evaluation measure is the change in the painful heat threshold Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) of thresholds for cutaneous heat stimuli before and after TMS.
After subjects contact the office to express interest in being involved with this protocol, subjects will take the telephone screening questionnaire. Those who meet inclusion criteria with no exclusions will come for first visit. At this visit, subjects will discuss and sign the consent form, and have a one sequence MRI scan which is used to localize sites in the brain to be stimulated with TMS. The subjects will then have four visits at intervals of two weeks; each visit will have TMS intervention designated (SITE1), (SITE2), (SITE3), and (SITE4). TMS will be applied each of four sites (SITE1, SITE2, SITE3, and SITE4) which will be randomly assigned among stimulation sites Medial Frontal (MF), Dorsolateral Frontal (DL), Primary Motor Cortex (M1 and superior Interparietal sulcus (Sham) and counterbalanced across subjects (see Diagram below). During each of visits 2 to 5, the participant will undergo baseline Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST), followed by TMS stimulation and then by repeat QST. QST will consist of pain thresholds for cutaneous hot stimuli. Visits 2 through 5 will last for approximately 1 hour each and will occur at two-week intervals. The total study duration will be 50 days for each subject. Study enrollment will last for three years and total study duration will be four years.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Volunteers will take a telephone screening questionnaire and those meeting inclusion criteria will attend their first visit. Those signing the consent will have a T1 weighted MRI scan to localize sites in the brain to be stimulated with TMS. The subjects will then have four visits at intervals of two weeks; each visit will have a TMS intervention including SITE1, SITE2, SITE3, and SITE4. The sequence of the testing TMS four different visits (SITE1 to SITE4) will be randomly assigned among stimulation sites Medial Frontal (MF), Dorsal Lateral Frontal (DL), Primary motor cortex (M1) and Interparietal Sulcus (Sham) and counterbalanced across subjects (see Diagram below). During each of visits 2 to 5, each participant will undergo baseline Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST), followed by a TMS intervention, and then by repeat QST. QST will consist of pain thresholds for contact heat.
Hopkiins Functional Neurosurgery Lab
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Contact Heat Pain Temperature Threshold Change
The contact heat thermal thermode will be used to measure heat pain thresholds (in degrees centigrade) before and after each stimulation site.
Time frame: Entire duration of study, approximately five years
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