Guanfacine for the Treatment of Spatial Neglect and Impaired Vigilance — GASNIV  

Stroke Clinical Trial

Official title: A Trial of Guanfacine, an Alpha 2 Adrenergic Agonist, for Spatial Neglect and Impaired Vigilance Following Stroke and Focal Brain Damage

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

To find out if spatial neglect following stroke and brain injury can be reduced using guanfacine, a drug that was shown to improve neglect in two stroke patients in a previous pilot study (Malhotra et al, 2006). In this trial, the effects of guanfacine will be examined in a larger number of patients, and there will also be a systematic assessment of whether the drug is only effective in patients with particular patterns of brain damage.

Clinical Trial Description

The current study has a double-blind crossover design where patients will receive a single 2mg dose of oral guanfacine and a single dose of placebo. They will receive one of these on Day 2 of the study period and the other on Day 4.

They will be tested daily on Days 1 to 5 so that any test repetition or long-term drug effects can be gauged.

On days 2 and 4 they will be tested twice-once prior to drug/placebo administration and again 90 minutes after drug/placebo administration.

Tests will include standard pen-and-paper tasks for neglect as well as computerised tests of sustained attention and visual exploration. In our published pilot study (Malhotra et al, 2006) there was a suggestion that patients without damage to frontal cortex were more likely to respond to guanfacine. In the current study we intend to test 10 patients with and 10 patients without frontal damage in order to test this further. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Hemispatial Neglect
• Perceptual Disorders
• Stroke

• NCT number: NCT00955253
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Imperial College London
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 2
• Start date: April 2010
• Completion date: March 28, 2014