Research

ACTIVE CLINICAL TRIAL

Visual Recovery Post-Stroke

Seeking participants with cortical damage and visual field deficits due to stroke

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18 years of age or older
  • Presence of some intact visual cortical areas (other than primary visual cortex) in the damaged brain hemisphere
  • First ever ischemic stroke with damage to primary visual cortex and rendered blind over a portion of their visual field
  • Demonstrates a clear deficit in either simple or complex visual perception in portions of their visual field as measured by visual perimetry
  • Willing and able to participate in the study protocol and to comply with study procedures
  • Minimum of competed 8th grade education
  • No history of intellectual disability
Study Information

This double-blinded study monitors the effect of visual training and noninvasive brain stimulation (tRNS) on the visual recovery of those with visual field deficits from cortical damage. Baseline measures such as visual perimetry tests, EEG, fMRI and visual discrimination tasks are compared immediately after 10 days of daily sessions and then 3 months after. There is a 50% chance the participant will receive "sham" stimulation, or no stimulation, and neither the participant or researcher will know until the entire study has completed.

The study is located in Boston, Massachusetts at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and requires participants to travel for up to 4 consecutive weeks. The first week entails 3-4 days of screening and baseline measures, the second and third week are for the 10 daily sessions of stimulation and visual training, and the fourth week is a follow up of 2-3 days to monitor any changes. 

Participants are compensated up to $500 for participation and reimbursed up to $60 a day for travel/parking fees.

 

Contact us for more information and to learn how to enroll!

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Boston, MA

Sabrina Pires (Research Assistant) -- (617) 667-0258 or spires1@bidmc.harvard.edu

Stacey Monsell (Research Assistant) -- smonsell@bidmc.harvard.edu

Lorella Battelli (Principal Investigator) -- lbattell@bidmc.harvard.edu

"Our work demonstrates that visual training coupled with brain stimulation can dramatically reduce the training period from months to weeks, and lead to fast improvement in neurotypical subjects and chronic cortically blind patients, indicating the potential of our procedure to help restore damaged visual abilities for currently untreatable visual dysfunctions. Together, these results indicate the critical role of early visual areas in perceptual learning and reveal its capacity for long-lasting plastic changes promoted by neuromodulatory intervention."

 

Study Details at ClinicalTrials.Gov !