# Restoring oscillations underlying adaptive control in schizophrenia with direct current

> **NIH NIH R01** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $392,320

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Schizophrenia is a severe and debilitating disorder that affects about 51 billion people worldwide, and costs
more than $60 billion annually in United States (Salomon and al., 2013). Despite the more spectacular
psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., hallucinations), it is the cognitive impairments that largely drive the
poor outcomes from the illness, such as preventing patients from keeping jobs, due to the inability of
medications to effectively treat these cognitive impairments (Gold and Weinberger, 1995; Green, 1996;
Elvevag and Goldberg, 2000). Failures of adaptive control are a hallmark of the cognitive impairments in
schizophrenia. Adaptive control allows healthy individuals to follow rules and to override compelling competing
responses. Impairments of adaptive control result in errors and an inability to change following negative
feedback. In systems neuroscience, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that adaptive control processes
are supported by oscillatory activity in the healthy brain (Luu et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2005; Cavanagh et al.,
2009; van Driel et al., 2012; Anguera et al., 2013; Narayanan et al., 2013; Cavanagh and Frank, 2014), and
that certain patterns of oscillatory dynamics might be useful for understanding the cognitive impairments in
schizophrenia (Ford and Mathalon, 2008; Uhlhaas and Singer, 2010; Lesh et al., 2011). In this project, we
propose to use a causal neuroscientific technique, noninvasive electrical brain stimulation, combined with
measurements of electroencephalographic oscillations to determine whether modifying certain oscillatory
rhythms in patients with schizophrenia can improve cognitive abilities. Our preliminary data are highly
encouraging and indicate that we can selectively manipulate the phase of oscillatory activity and cause
improvements in the adaptive control exhibited by patients with schizophrenia. The goals of our research are to
use the tools and insights from basic neuroscience to gain a deeper understanding the cognitive impairments
in schizophrenia, and achieve concrete translational progress toward a non-pharmacological therapy for
boosting cognitive function in schizophrenia.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9995577
- **Project number:** 5R01MH110378-05
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** SOHEE PARK
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $392,320
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-07 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9995577

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9995577, Restoring oscillations underlying adaptive control in schizophrenia with direct current (5R01MH110378-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9995577. Licensed CC0.

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