Feasibility StudyConTRAstrokeNCT04205526
Contralesional Inhibitory rTMS for Recovery of Arm Function After Stroke
A study testing Active rTMS in people with Feasibility Study and Post-Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Motor Deficit, run by Thiel, Alexander, M.D. at 1 site in Canada.
Trial summary
The CanStim consensus working group (multidisciplinary team of experts in rTMS from institutions across Canada) developed consensus recommendations for a protocol to deliver rTMS as an adjunct to a standard behavioral intervention to improve functional outcomes after stroke in a national stroke rehabilitation clinical… Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 90 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Feasibility Study, Post-Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Motor Deficit, Post-Stroke Patients With Cognitive Deficits
- What is being tested?
- Active rTMS
- Type of treatment
- Medical device
- Could I receive a placebo?
- Yes, some participants may receive a placebo
- How many people
- 83 participants
- Where
- 1 siteCanada
- Study dates
- 1 Mar 2021to 31 Dec 2025
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- None posted in the registry
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 90 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
- Inclusion criteria: patients with first ischemic stroke between 2 weeks and 3 months of stroke onset, patients with both cortical and subcortical infarcts, age between 18 and 90 years, English or French as language of daily use, patients must be able to participate in a standard of care upper extremity therapy program and must be able to perform the GRASP AND should have a minimum deficit that they can improve (e.g., <= 56 on FM UE). For the cognitively impaired patients, we will not exclude those with a higher upper limb mobility function. The patients with cognitive complaints, will only be included if they have a score of <24 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).
- Exclusion criteria: prior symptomatic ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, severe comprehension deficit that may compromise informed consent or understanding of instructions, contraindications to MRI and/or TMS, neurodegenerative or psychiatric disease, epilepsy, or EEG-documented epileptic discharges, chronic renal or liver failure, life-threatening diseases limiting life expectancy to less than 6 months and auditory or visual deficits that cannot be corrected and might impair testing. We will not exclude patients with higher upper limb mobility function.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
About this study
Official title: Canadian Platform for Trials With Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation: Contralesional Inhibitory rTMS for Recovery of Arm Function After Stroke - A Feasibility Trial (Canstim: ConTRA-Stroke-F)
The CanStim consensus working group (multidisciplinary team of experts in rTMS from institutions across Canada) developed consensus recommendations for a protocol to deliver rTMS as an adjunct to a standard behavioral intervention to improve functional outcomes after stroke in a national stroke rehabilitation clinical trial. The overall goal of this multi-center feasibility trial is not to demonstrate that rTMS is effective, but to demonstrate that each site can recruit the assigned number of patients within a certain period, perform the stimulation procedure in conjunction with the protocol-specified intervention, complete the therapy protocol and enter complete datasets for each patient into the CanStim database. A secondary aim is to identify potential weaknesses of the consensus protocol that may need to be modified before performing a larger scale trial testing for the efficacy of the intervention. A tertiary goal is to examine sex differences in neurophysiological recovery (motor evoked potential and arm functional movement recovery) after 15 treatment sessions of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and to identify sex and gender-related factors that predict the post-stroke recovery.
Read the detailed description
Rehabilitation is critical for reducing stroke-related disability. Although intensive physiotherapy improves function after a stroke, the frequency and intensity of therapy in a standard clinical rehabilitation session is insufficient to invoke these changes. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, non-invasive method of stimulating the human brain. Repetitive TMS (rTMS) may have the potential to enhance the brain's ability to re-learn specific functions and reduce the amount of standard therapy required to achieve certain functional gains after stroke. Although two recent multicenter studies have begun to test the benefits of applying rTMS during stroke rehabilitation, large scale clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of rTMS for post-stroke functional motor recovery are lacking. The use of rTMS interventions in stroke rehabilitation trials has been limited by a lack of consensus regarding the optimal protocol for the clinical application of TMS in stroke populations. The Canadian Platform for Trials in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (CanStim) is a national platform that aims to facilitate multicenter clinical trials for non-invasive brain stimulation interventions to augment recovery from stroke. As a first step, CanStim investigators convened a multidisciplinary team of experts in rTMS from institutions across Canada to form the CanStim Consensus Working Group and develop consensus recommendations for a protocol to deliver rTMS as an adjunct to standard therapy in a national stroke rehabilitation clinical trial.
- Conditions
- Feasibility Study, Post-Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Motor Deficit, Post-Stroke Patients With Cognitive Deficits
- Being tested
- Active rTMS, Sham TMS
- Keywords
- Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Active rTMSDevice
Patients randomized to receive actual rTMS treatment will receive 1Hz rTMS applied over contralesional M1 at an intensity of 120% resting motor threshold once daily for 30 minutes (approximately 1800 pulses) for a total of 15 sessions.
Sham TMSDevice
For sham-stimulation, the TMS coil will be placed over the inter-hemispheric fissure at the vertex and stimulation will be performed with low intensity (10% resting motor threshold). This will cause similar skin sensations as real stimulation but will not induce currents in motor relevant areas.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Active rTMS | Experimental | Sub-acute stroke patients will be randomized to receive actual rTMS treatment. 1Hz rTMS will be applied over contralesional M1 at an intensity of 120% resting motor threshold once daily for 30 minutes (approximately 1800 pulses) for a total of 15 sessions. Receives: Device: Active rTMS |
| Sham control | Sham comparator | Sub-acute stroke patients randomized to receive sham rTMS. For sham-stimulation, the TMS coil will be placed over the inter-hemispheric fissure at the vertex and stimulation will be performed with low intensity (10% resting motor threshold). This will cause similar skin sensations as real stimulation but will not induce currents in motor relevant areas. Receives: Device: Sham TMS |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Change in the Fugl-Meyer Upper Arm Assessment between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
Index to assess sensorimotor impairment in stroke.
Measured: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The Fugl Meyer has a minimum score of 0 and maximum score of 66. The higher the score the better the outcome.
Change in the Action Research Arm Test between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
An evaluative measure to assess specific changes in limb function among individuals who sustained cortical damage resulting in hemiplegia. It can assess a patients ability to handle objects differing in size, weight and shape and therefore can be considered to be an arm-specific measure of activity limitation.
Measured: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The test is scored from 0-57. The higher the score the better the outcome.
Change in the Modified Rankin Scale between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
It is a scale for measuring the degree of disability or dependence in the activites of daily living in individuals who have suffered a stroke.
Measured: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The scale is between 0-6. Zero being no symptoms to 6 the patient is dead. The lower the score the better the outcome.
Secondary outcomes (1)
Change in the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
This measure serves to identify issues of personal importance to the client and to detect changes in a client's self-perception of occupational performance over time.
Measured: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. Two scores are obtained from each participant, one for performance and one for satisfaction. Each are scored between 0-10. The higher the value the better.
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted19 Dec 2019
- Study start1 Mar 2021
- Primary completion31 Dec 2025
- Study completion31 Dec 2025
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Feasibility StudyStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Quadruple blind
- Who is masked
- Participant, Care provider, Investigator, Outcomes assessor
- Enrolment
- 83 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Thiel, Alexander, M.D.
- Collaborators
- Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Dr. Alexander Thiel, Thiel, Alexander, M.D.
- Investigators
- ALEXANDER THIEL, MD, Phd, Principal investigator, Jewish General Hospital
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT04205526
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- MP-05-2020-1891
- Acronym
- ConTRAstroke
- Status last verified
- Sep 2026
- First submitted
- 17 Dec 2019
- Last updated
- 23 Sep 2026
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 23 Sep 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Canadian Platform for Trials With Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation: Contralesional Inhibitory rTMS for Recovery of Arm Function After Stroke - A Feasibility Trial (Canstim: ConTRA-Stroke-F)
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT04205526
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- ConTRAstroke / MP-05-2020-1891
- Conditions
- Feasibility Study, Post-Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Motor Deficit, Post-Stroke Patients With Cognitive Deficits
- Keywords
- Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 83 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- Thiel, Alexander, M.D.
- Collaborators
- Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation
- Study start
- 1 Mar 2021 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 31 Dec 2025 (actual)
- Study completion
- 31 Dec 2025 (actual)
- First posted
- 19 Dec 2019 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
The CanStim consensus working group (multidisciplinary team of experts in rTMS from institutions across Canada) developed consensus recommendations for a protocol to deliver rTMS as an adjunct to a standard behavioral intervention to improve functional outcomes after stroke in a national stroke rehabilitation clinical trial. The overall goal of this multi-center feasibility trial is not to demonstrate that rTMS is effective, but to demonstrate that each site can recruit the assigned number of patients within a certain period, perform the stimulation procedure in conjunction with the protocol-specified intervention, complete the therapy protocol and enter complete datasets for each patient into the CanStim database. A secondary aim is to identify potential weaknesses of the consensus protocol that may need to be modified before performing a larger scale trial testing for the efficacy of the intervention. A tertiary goal is to examine sex differences in neurophysiological recovery (motor evoked potential and arm functional movement recovery) after 15 treatment sessions of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and to identify sex and gender-related factors that predict the post-stroke recovery.
Detailed description
Rehabilitation is critical for reducing stroke-related disability. Although intensive physiotherapy improves function after a stroke, the frequency and intensity of therapy in a standard clinical rehabilitation session is insufficient to invoke these changes. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe, non-invasive method of stimulating the human brain. Repetitive TMS (rTMS) may have the potential to enhance the brain's ability to re-learn specific functions and reduce the amount of standard therapy required to achieve certain functional gains after stroke. Although two recent multicenter studies have begun to test the benefits of applying rTMS during stroke rehabilitation, large scale clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of rTMS for post-stroke functional motor recovery are lacking. The use of rTMS interventions in stroke rehabilitation trials has been limited by a lack of consensus regarding the optimal protocol for the clinical application of TMS in stroke populations. The Canadian Platform for Trials in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (CanStim) is a national platform that aims to facilitate multicenter clinical trials for non-invasive brain stimulation interventions to augment recovery from stroke. As a first step, CanStim investigators convened a multidisciplinary team of experts in rTMS from institutions across Canada to form the CanStim Consensus Working Group and develop consensus recommendations for a protocol to deliver rTMS as an adjunct to standard therapy in a national stroke rehabilitation clinical trial.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Other
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Quadruple blind (participant, care provider, investigator, outcomes assessor)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Active rTMS | Experimental | Device: Active rTMSSub-acute stroke patients will be randomized to receive actual rTMS treatment. 1Hz rTMS will be applied over contralesional M1 at an intensity of 120% resting motor threshold once daily for 30 minutes (approximately 1800 pulses) for a total of 15 sessions. |
| Sham control | Sham comparator | Device: Sham TMSSub-acute stroke patients randomized to receive sham rTMS. For sham-stimulation, the TMS coil will be placed over the inter-hemispheric fissure at the vertex and stimulation will be performed with low intensity (10% resting motor threshold). This will cause similar skin sensations as real stimulation but will not induce currents in motor relevant areas. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 90 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Active rTMSPatients randomized to receive actual rTMS treatment will receive 1Hz rTMS applied over contralesional M1 at an intensity of 120% resting motor threshold once daily for 30 minutes (approximately 1800 pulses) for a total of 15 sessions. | Device | Active rTMS |
| Sham TMSFor sham-stimulation, the TMS coil will be placed over the inter-hemispheric fissure at the vertex and stimulation will be performed with low intensity (10% resting motor threshold). This will cause similar skin sensations as real stimulation but will not induce currents in motor relevant areas. | Device | Sham control |
Primary outcome
Change in the Fugl-Meyer Upper Arm Assessment between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
Time frame: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The Fugl Meyer has a minimum score of 0 and maximum score of 66. The higher the score the better the outcome.
Index to assess sensorimotor impairment in stroke.
Change in the Action Research Arm Test between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
Time frame: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The test is scored from 0-57. The higher the score the better the outcome.
An evaluative measure to assess specific changes in limb function among individuals who sustained cortical damage resulting in hemiplegia. It can assess a patients ability to handle objects differing in size, weight and shape and therefore can be considered to be an arm-specific measure of activity limitation.
Change in the Modified Rankin Scale between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
Time frame: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The scale is between 0-6. Zero being no symptoms to 6 the patient is dead. The lower the score the better the outcome.
It is a scale for measuring the degree of disability or dependence in the activites of daily living in individuals who have suffered a stroke.
1 secondary outcome
Change in the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30
Time frame: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. Two scores are obtained from each participant, one for performance and one for satisfaction. Each are scored between 0-10. The higher the value the better.
Results and safety
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 23 Sep 2026.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
Related trials for Feasibility Study
RecruitingObservational study
Magnetic Field Maps With NV Application Kit MCG
Technical Feasibility and Performance of the Sensor System, Healthy Adult
Not yet recruiting
Feasibility Study of a Relaxation and Guided Imagery Intervention Research Protocol for Use in School Settings.
Feasibility Studies, Acceptability
Active, not recruiting
A Mobile App to Improve 24-Hour Movement Guideline Adherence in Preschoolers
Healthy, 24-Hour Movement Guidelines
Not yet recruiting
Testing the Timing and Application of Virtual Reality Distraction During Knee Injections in a VA Pain Clinic
Pain Management, Injection Pain Prevention
Recruiting
PROtective Ventilation With FLOW-Controlled Ventilation
Postoperative Pulmonary Complications (PPCs), Feasibility Studies
Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
ALEXANDER THIEL, MD, Phd principal investigator
Jewish General Hospital
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Active rTMS in people with Feasibility Study and Post-Stroke Patients With Upper Extremity Motor Deficit, run by Thiel, Alexander, M.D. at 1 site in Canada.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 23 Sep 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in Canada. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. Some participants in this study may receive a placebo. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Change in the Fugl-Meyer Upper Arm Assessment between baseline, Post Day 1 and Post Day 30 (time frame: Baseline Testing done within the first three days then at 1 and 30 days post treatment. The Fugl Meyer has a minimum score of 0 and maximum score of 66. The higher the score the better the outcome.). The study lists 3 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 23 Sep 2026; AzTrials last refreshed its copy on 7 Nov 2026.