PIPages
Labs

Chris Gregory

Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Medicine & Clinical Research

Depression is the most common mental health problem after stroke, and current treatments mostly do not work well. It also gets in the way of recovery, so people with post-stroke depression are often left out of rehabilitation trials and have few treatment options.

Fields

Medicine & Clinical Research

Neuroscience

Psychology

Topics

stroke

depression

aerobic exercise

Grants
1 known grant, through Aug 2029

What they work on

  1. Compare the effects of combined aerobic exercise and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive brain stimulation method, versus either treatment alone on depressive symptoms in people with post-stroke depression.
  2. Test whether aerobic exercise enhances the antidepressant effect of rTMS, and whether reducing depression is linked to better post-stroke recovery, including walking.
  3. Determine how post-stroke depression limits response to rehabilitation and which baseline participant traits relate to treatment response.

More about the research

The project starts from the idea that depression limits how well the brain and body adapt to rehabilitation. It proposes a "virtuous cycle": treating depression could help people respond better to rehabilitation and regain more function.

Why it matters

People who have had a stroke often develop depression, and current treatments help few of them. If combining aerobic exercise with rTMS proves effective, it could give stroke survivors a new way to treat depression that may also improve walking and overall recovery, and could guide rehabilitation design for patients and their families.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Combining rTMS & aerobic exercise to treat depression and improve post-stroke walking (RESTORATION)

NIH · Sep 2024 – Aug 2029

Closest labs

Jessica Cassidy

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Neuroscience

Test whether beta-burst repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), magnetic pulses timed to the brain's 13–30 Hz movement rhythm, increases corticomuscular coherence more at a site inside the brain-muscle circuit than at a decoy site, in adults with chronic stroke.

Zafiris Daskalakis

University of California-San Diego, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research

Compare standard, clustered and sham maintenance rTMS over six months in 75 adults with treatment-resistant depression, testing which best sustains connectivity between the DLPFC and SGC measured by TMS-EEG.

Ying-Hui Chou

University of Arizona, AZ·Neuroscience

Determine whether excitatory or inhibitory rTMS, magnetic pulses delivered through the scalp and aimed at the hippocampus, improves memory more than sham stimulation, in a randomized crossover trial of 60 adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

The school

Medical University of South Carolina: 19 labs on PI Pages, $321M a year on research, 271 research doctorates a year.

More about Medical University of South Carolina

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