ACTRIMS 2022 | Investigating the impact of at-home training and tDCS on cognitive function in MS

So this was a randomized sham-controlled trial of tDCS, or transcranial direct current stimulation, which is a type of noninvasive brain stimulation paired with brain training games or adaptive cognitive remediation that’s through a web-based platform using Posit Science’s BrainHQ.

And so the intervention was a six week intervention of 30 sessions of 20 minutes of training, and participants were randomized to active or sham tDCS. We enrolled 120 people and we found that the training was very feasible. We had a high rate of completion. Over 92% of the participants completed all the training sessions.

And so this was a completely home-based trial. So really supporting the use for telerehabilitation. And we found a significant benefit for the active versus sham tDCS on cognitive functioning measured by change in BICAMS, or Brief International Cognitive Assessment for MS, measuring change from baseline to study end. And that active tDCS versus sham tDCS led to significantly better training cognitive outcomes.

The overall idea is functional targeting with tDCS for rehabilitation. So if we can boost or potentiate the learning that occurs during a training activity, we can have a stronger and hopefully more durable benefit from that training activity. So that’s broadly the way that we’re evaluating tDCS, both for cognitive and motor rehabilitation.