Model-based Electrical Brain Stimulation for Epilepsy Patients

This study is testing a new way to personalize electrical brain stimulation for people with epilepsy that doesn't respond to medication. The goal is to improve treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders like depression. Researchers will use "model-based electrical brain stimulation" to track your depression symptoms using your brain activity and see how your brain responds to stimulation. This could help create more tailored treatments in the future. You can join if you are at least 18 years old and already have electrodes implanted in your brain for epilepsy monitoring. The study aims to enroll 25 participants, but its current recruitment status is unclear.

Study design: This is an interventional study with a planned enrollment of 25 participants. The phase of the study is not specified.
What's involved: You would participate in the study during your stay in the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) for your standard clinical care. Brain activity (iEEG) will be recorded, and you will complete questionnaires about depression symptoms.
Compensation: Not stated in the trial record.
Follow-up: The primary endpoint, decoded depression symptom ratings, will be measured at 5-10 days.

AI-generated from the public study record. Only the study team can confirm whether you're eligible — confirm details with them before making decisions.

Model-based Electrical Brain Stimulation

Recruiting

NAAges 18+InterventionalBasic science

University of Southern California

~25 participants

Updated 2025-09-22 on ClinicalTrials.gov

What's tested:model-based electrical brain stimulation

At a glance

Recruiting sites

2 of 2 listed sites are recruiting right now

RecruitingSuspended, closed, or not yet open

What they're measuring

Decoded depression symptom ratings based on neural activity

Measured over 5-10 days

Conditions

Medication Refractory Epilepsy Patients With Electrodes Already Implanted Based on Clinical Criteria for Standard Monitoring

Where it's being run

2 sites across 1 states

California2

Study leadership

Maryam M Shanechi, PhD · PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR · University of Southern California

Who to contact

Maryam M Shanechi, PhD

[email protected]

213-740-1377

Email the study team

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Do you actually qualify for this trial?

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Eligibility criteria

Inclusion

Patients being evaluated for surgical treatment of medication refractory epilepsy and brain tumors will be studied. ONLY patients with electrodes implanted based on clinical criteria to locate their seizure focus will be studied. Most patients are healthy adults, outside of their epilepsy and/or brain tumor.

Subjects \>= 18 are only included in this study.

All patients with the above conditions and with implanted electrode arrays who are willing to participate and able to cooperate and follow research instructions will be recruited. However, analysis of research recording data will focus on those subjects with an IQ \>= 80, with no impairments of reading, naming, or articulation (to minimize confounds such as abnormal language processing that may affect their self-reporting with the questionnaire), and with no cerebral pathology affecting the cortical regions from which recordings are made.

Exclusion

Subjects \< 18 years old will be excluded from this study due to the high concordance of developmental disorders (cognitive and language-related) in pediatric epilepsies.

There will be no involvement of special classes of subjects, such as fetuses, neonates, pregnant women, children, prisoners, institutionalized individuals, or others who may be considered vulnerable populations.

Patients who are unable to give informed consent due to a brain disorder will be excluded from the study, as it is very likely that they would be unable to carry out the tasks demanded by the study.

What this trial measures

Decoded depression symptom ratings based on neural activity5-10 days
A personalized decoder is trained for each patient using the recorded neural activity and self-reports. Then this decoder is used to estimate the biomarker purely from neural activity; that is, based on neural activity, it will return the estimation of depression symptom ratings (HAMD-6 or VAS self-reports)

Trialytics