View clinical trials related to Hormonal Contraception.
Filter by:For almost 60 years, millions of women globally have relied on oral contraceptive (OC) pills for pregnancy prevention and addressing menstrual irregularities. However, 4-10% of users experience mood-related side effects such as depression and anxiety, often leading to discontinuation of OC use. Previous studies also indicate that OC usage may lead to chronic alterations in brain structure and the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a system involved in regulating stress responses. In the proposed study the investigators aim to investigate in more detail how women who start taking oral contraception (OC) and women who stop taking OC differ in their stress reactivity and their mood from long-term OC users. Furthermore, assessing hormones will help to shed light on the connection between OC, stress reaction, sex hormones and the brain. To achieve this, individual biomarkers will be evaluated, including changes in brain anatomy, functional responses and connectivity during acute psychosocial stress and early changes in mood and well-being through ambulatory assessment.
Oxytocin is a hypothalamic neuropeptide that is best known for its peripheral physiological effects in the female organism i.e., uterine contractions during birth. The neuropeptide furthermore affects reward processing and metabolic functions such as eating behavior and body weight. Oxytocin receptors are present in brain regions associated with the processing of rewards, e.g., ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and nucleus stria terminalis. Previous studies indicate that oxytocin interacts with sex hormones such as estradiol in a sex-specific manner. Despite known sex differences in oxytocin function, most studies i.e., on the metabolic effects of oxytocin in humans have so far focused on young, healthy men. Intranasal oxytocin administration has emerged as a method to experimentally investigate central nervous effects of oxytocin in the absence of relevant side effects. In the proposed study the investigators aim to systematically investigate the acute effect of intranasal oxytocin on reward processing in relation to circulating and synthetic sex hormones in healthy, naturally cycling women and in women taking hormonal oral contraceptive pills. The investigators will administer 24 international units (IU) of intranasal oxytocin vs. placebo and investigate neural correlates in a 3T MRI scanner including functional imaging during a reward processing task, changes in brain anatomy and connectivity. Additionally, metabolic functions, eating behavior and changes in mood and wellbeing will be assessed and blood will be drawn to assess parameters of hormonal and metabolic status.
The study is a prospective cohort study to explore the mechanisms underlying the HIV risk associated with pharmacologic doses of exogenous sex hormones via hormonal contraceptives specially progestin-containing hormonal contraception (HC). The study seeks to test that HC induce immunologic changes capable of altering HIV susceptibilities, that these effects will vary by contraceptive type, and that they will be modified by the vaginal microenvironment.
One arm clinical trial of Nuvaring use for six months among 200 previously contracepting HIV-negative women (COCPs or DMPA) aged 18-35 in Kenya, where no vaginal rings are licensed/available for contraception or other indications. This was meant to be a formative research study to understand the predictors of acceptability and adherence to a contraceptive vaginal ring, and its immunoogical and microbiological effects over six months of product use.