View clinical trials related to Major Depression.
Filter by:The purpose of this research study is to find out if the medication known as ketamine can help the symptoms of depression. This drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but the investigators will use it for a non-FDA approved reason (depression).
The steroid hormone cortisol is released in response to stress and acts in the central nervous system upon glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR). GR are widely distributed across the brain while MR are predominantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex - two brain areas closely related to memory and executive function. Stimulation of MR leads to an increase of glutamate that act on glutamatergic NMDA receptors in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. In previous studies, the investigators have shown that fludrocortisone, a mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) agonist, improves memory and executive function in depressed patients and healthy controls. However, depressed patients not only exhibit cognitive deficits in traditional neuropsychological domains such as memory or executive function. In addition, there are depression-specific alterations such as cognitive bias and deficits in social cognition, two clinically highly relevant areas. Therefore, the specific aims of this renewal proposal are two-fold: - To examine whether beneficial effects of fludrocortisone in depressed patients can be extended to depression-specific cognitive bias and to social cognition - To determine whether beneficial effects of fludrocortisone depend on NMDA-receptor function and whether these beneficial effects can be enhanced by NMDA receptor stimulation. The investigators hypothesize that fludrocortisone will improve cognitive bias and social cognition in depressed patients and that its beneficial effects depend on the NMDA receptor. Therefore, the investigators further hypothesize that the effects of fludrocortisone can be enhanced by co-administration of the partial NMDA receptor agonist D-cycloserine. The study not only advances current knowledge by further examining the mechanism of action by which MR stimulation exerts beneficial effects on cognition but extends these effects to depression-specific cognitive bias and alterations in social cognition. Furthermore, a potential interaction between MR and NMDA receptors is highly clinically relevant given the promising results with NMDA receptor antagonists in the treatment of major depression.
This study represents Phase II of a research program involving an international collaboration with Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) to implement an Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for the treatment of anxiety and depression in French-speaking Canadians from the Atlantic Provinces. The primary objective is to establish the clinical efficacy of a French-Canadian self-guided format version of the Wellbeing Course by conducting a randomized-control trial where an experimental group will be compared to a waitlist control group. A secondary objective is to demonstrate the course's acceptability through participants' satisfaction with the course.
This is a two-part (open-label followed by double-blind) study evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of SAGE-217 in 102 participants diagnosed with moderate to severe Major Depressive Disorder.
This trial will compare conventional sequential bilateral rTMS to a bilateral theta burst stimulation protocol. The right and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortices will be the site of stimulation in both treatment conditions. The site of stimulation will be targeted using MRI co-registration. The study seeks to determine if the bilateral theta burst protocol has similar effectiveness to the conventional bilateral rTMS protocol in treating major depression.
The objects of this study is to assess the relative bioavailability (BA) of 80 mg LY03005 oral tablets compared to 50 mg Pristiq® oral tablets after a single oral intake under fasting conditions in healthy subjects between 18 and 50 years of age.
Selective biases in attention can be modified by a simple computerized technique: The Attention Bias Modification Task (ABM) pioneered by MacLeod et al. Cognitive biases may be one reason depression recurs, and altering these biases should reduce risk of recurrence. Recently, evidence has supported this hypothesis . The mechanisms by which ABM works are not well understood. More research is needed to explore how altering an implicit attentional bias can lead to changes in subjective mood. One possible explanation is that positive attentional biases are an important component of explicit methods of emotion regulation. The ability to effectively regulate one's emotions is a fundamental component of mental health and this ability is impaired in depression. It has also been shown that recovered depressed people spontaneously show a more dysfunctional pattern of emotion regulation as compared to never depressed controls. Supporting this, growing evidence implicates dysregulation of a medial/orbitofrontal circuit in mood disorders. This circuit includes the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, the ventral striatum, the ventral pallidum and medial thalamus. Components of this circuit are reciprocally connected with the amygdala, which is implicated in emotional processing in the healthy brain and dysregulated in depression. Negative emotion processing biases depend on both enhanced "bottom-up" responses to emotionally salient stimuli and reduces "top-down" cognitive control mechanisms, required to suppress responses to emotionally salient but task irrelevant information. Cognitive reappraisal and distancing are common strategies to down- or upregulate emotional responses. Reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy that involves reinterpretation and changing the way one thinks about an event or stimulus with the goal of changing its affective impact. Distancing is a type of reappraisal that involves creating mental space between oneself and the emotional event in order to see things from a different, less self-focused perspective. It has been shown that distancing is a strategy that people can improve at over time compared to reinterpretation. The neural systems which support the explicit regulation of emotion have previously been characterized and include both lateral- and prefrontal cortex. This frontal activity is predicted to downregulate limbic circuitry involving the amygdala during passive viewing of emotional salient stimuli.
Depression is often the most prevalent mental health problem among people living with HIV (PLWH) worldwide, and if not adequately treated, it may impair response to antiretroviral treatment (ART) and the ability of individuals to adhere to medications and healthy behavior. Most patients with depression receiving ART in the poorest countries of the world are left untreated because no systematic approach or expertise is available. This study adapts an evidence-based model of depression care (Measurement-Based Care - MBC) using auxiliary HIV clinic staff, and tests feasibility and assesses costs among HIV positive patients beginning ART in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The purpose of the present trial is to test the efficacy of Ayahuasca in treatment-resistant depression. Ayahuasca is a decoction of two plants, long used by Amazonian Amerindians. Traditionally, it is prepared by decoction of a bush (Psychotria viridis) with a liana (Banisteriopsis caapi). P. viridis is a rich source of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a serotonergic agonist, and B. caapi contains potent monoamine oxidase-A inhibitors (MAOi-A), such as harmine, harmaline. The study is designed as a randomized placebo controlled trial with two parallel arms, and it will also evaluate changes of different biomarkers of depression including anatomical and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), serum levels of BDNF, TNF-a, cortisol, IL-6, and IL-10, polysomnography, neuropsychological, psychiatric scales and questionnaires.
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a novel non-invasive brain stimulation treatment that is effective with no significant side effects. It can potentially be self-administered by patients in their own homes with remote monitoring, substantially reducing treatment costs and increasing accessibility, including to remote areas. This study will evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of home-administered tDCS treatment for depression.