Sustained Attention Abilities in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenic Psychoses Clinical Trial

— ACCRAS  

Official title:

Sustained Attention Abilities, Attentional Resources and Cognitive Control Mechanisms in Schizophrenia

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02388607
• Other study ID #: 5972
• Status: Recruiting
• Start date: March 2015
• Est. completion date: March 2023

Study information

• Verified date: September 2021
• Source: University Hospital, Strasbourg, France
• Contact: Dimitri Sanchez
• Email: drci[@]chru-strasbourg.fr
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric pathology, which concerns around 1% of adult population. It is characterized by clinical symptoms combining positive and negative symptoms and thinking disorganization. Schizophrenia is also characterized by cognitive deficits, likely to play an important part in adaptation of these patients in their every-day life, and to affect their clinical symptomatology. Among them, there are deficits in sustained attention which are associated with a difficulty for these patients to maintain efficiently their cognitive activity on a source of stimulation or task. This basic attentional process is fundamental for the efficiency of the overall of cognitive processes, and so for all behaviors directed on an aim. The question of whether or not patients with schizophrenia have difficulty sustaining attention is of high relevance, in the sense that it could undermine performance on nearly any task and so provide a compelling causal explanation of many other impairments observed in these patients. Yet it has not been conclusively answered in over four decades of research. Consequently, the main objective of the protocol is to evaluate sustained attention abilities in schizophrenic patients and to better understand the specific functioning of cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these abilities (attentional resources and cognitive control mechanisms).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 80
• Est. completion date: March 2023
• Est. primary completion date: March 2023
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 60 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• age between 18 and 60 years (include)
• men or women volunteers, hospitalized or not
• subject affiliated to an health insurance
• subject having signed an informed consent (for patients):
• presence of DSM-IV TR criteria for schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) Exclusion criteria
• a major somatic disorder or non stabilized
• medical history likely to affect cerebral anatomy or to be linked to an abnormality (neonatal distress, neurochirurgical intervention, neurological disorders, stroke attack)
• any disorders involved in the use of a psycho-active substance (as defined by the DSM-IV)
• sensory disabling impairments, and specifically visual acuity < 8
• general anaesthesia during the 3 months before the study
• pregnancy (declared by the subject)
• persons in an emergency situation
• persons deprived in any way of their liberty
• persons in period of exclusion in an other protocol
• use of psychotropic substance during the 3 weeks before the study
• use of benzodiazepines

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Schizophrenia
• Schizophrenic Psychoses

Intervention

Other:
• measurements
performance measurements

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
France	Service de psychiatrie	Strasbourg

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University Hospital, Strasbourg, France

Country where clinical trial is conducted

France, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Assess sustained attention span of patients with schizophrenia	Subjects are involved in 4 different attentional tasks during which behavioral and electrophysiological measures are recorded in order to evaluate sustained attention abilities and the specific functioning of cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these abilities in schizophrenic patients.	two half-days
Secondary	Study the specific mechanisms underlying attention skills supported in schizophrenic patients	Subjects are involved in 4 different attentional tasks during which behavioral and electrophysiological measures are recorded in order to evaluate sustained attention abilities and the specific functioning of cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these abilities in schizophrenic patients.	two half-days