View clinical trials related to Psychosis.
Filter by:The purpose of this study is to evaluate an integrative therapeutic concept for schizophrenic patients with comorbid substance use disorder.
The investigators propose to recruit patients who have experienced a recent first episode of psychosis who have a chart diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Schizophrenifom, Schizoaffective Disorder, Psychosis NOS, or Bipolar I Disorder with psychotic features and self identify themselves as a current cigarette smoker. Aiding this population with smoking cessation is crucial as the majority of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (50-90%) smoke, which is leading to early mortality. While these individuals can benefit from standard evidence-based treatment, these treatments are underutilized. Web based programs, such as the EDSS and thetruth.com, can provide education and motivational tools to help people with a recent onset of psychosis use evidence-based smoking cessation treatments. This study aims to test these two web-based programs among young people with a recent episode of psychosis for usability and likeability and to explore whether use of these two programs will motivate users to seek smoking cessation treatment or to engage in other quitting behaviors in the month following use of the programs. Information gathered from this proposal will be used to help the researchers decide whether either of these two programs will be reasonable to include in a larger study of a comprehensive treatment for individuals with first episode psychosis.
BBB dysfunction has been indicated in some groups of schizophrenia patients by measuring increased albumin and immunoglobulin (IgG) cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels. Most of the authors described a raised protein level in 5-20% of the schizophrenic patients (Muller & Ackenheil, 1995). Increased S100B levels were demonstrated in the serum of patients suffering from schizophrenia as well as depression, and this may reflect increased BBB permeability. Furthermore, this increase remains in those patients who develop a residual state with relevant negative symptoms, whereas S100B levels normalize in recovering patients (Shalev, Serlin & Friedman, 2009). CSF albumin and CSF IgG values correlate significantly with some of the SANS (Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms) subscales and the SANS total score, this shows the correlation between BBB permeability and behavioral changes. It is important to say that although negative symptoms are often signs of chronicity of the disease, the abnormal CSF findings in Muller's experiment (1995) are not related to the duration of the disease, because the patients were quite young and the duration of the disease was less than 3 years. The investigators hypothesize that a primary vascular pathology, which leads to BBB breakdown, will result a leakage of serum-derived vascular components in to the brain tissue and may cause brain dysfunction such as disturbed thinking processes, mood and behavior, as we can see in psychiatric patients.
The purpose of the proposed research is to study the potential changes in biomarkers of patients with neurodevelopmental disorders in response to treatment in clinical trials or in private psychiatry practice utilizing non-invasive psychophysiological measurements. The investigators plan to obtain psychophysical measurements throughout several periods of treatment.
This is a one-week, randomized, double blind add-on study of valaciclovir versus placebo in 24 clinical patients with Schizophrenia according to DSM IV, currently experiencing psychosis as is defined by the positive items of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANNS) score, being five or higher on one item or four on two items of this scale. Each patient will be randomized to double blind treatment with either valaciclovir or placebo for one week. The main objective is to find a pre- and post-valaciclovir treatment difference in hippocampal inflammation, as measured with positron emission tomography. The secondary objective is to improve cognition by the supposed anti-inflammatory effect on the hippocampus of valaciclovir. This is measured by pre- and post-treatment performance on the PANSS, the attention and memory test. Both the treatment team and the patient will remain blinded during the course of the study. Following the active treatment phase, patients will receive treatment as clinically indicated.
Multi-site Communication Deficits Underlying Cognitive Dysfunction in the Prodromal Phase and First Episode of Schizophrenia
Veterans with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder experience high levels of disability and poor community outcome, and these poor functional outcomes constitute a major public health concern. The treatment of schizophrenia spectrum disorders has shifted fundamentally from a focus on symptom reduction to a focus on recovery and improving aspects of functioning. Needed improvements in community outcome for patients with these disorders will not occur simply through better control of clinical symptoms. Instead, it is necessary to find new treatments that address the key determinants of poor functional outcome, including social cognition. Both basic (non-social) cognition and social cognition are considered key determinants of functional outcome for schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Basic cognition includes the domains of: learning and memory, vigilance / attention, speed of processing, reasoning and problem solving, and working memory. Social cognition generally refers to mental operations that underlie social interactions, including perceiving, interpreting, managing, and generating responses to socially relevant stimuli, including the intentions and behaviors of others. As part of the investigators' previous Merit grant, they have developed a training program for social cognition and are in the process of validating it. Initial results suggest that the program improves performance on measures of social cognition and functional capacity. In this study, the investigators will evaluate whether adding an in vivo component (training activities that occur in the community) to the current social cognition intervention facilitates generalization of training effects to community outcome and subjective satisfaction. Outcome measures of social cognition and functional capacity will be examined during the 12 week training program, and durability of benefits will be assessed at a 3-month follow up. Generalization to community functioning and subjective satisfaction will be assessed at the end of training and at the 3-month follow up. The investigators will enroll 105 patients across the 5 years of the study with random assignment to training group (social cognition intervention with in vivo exercises, social cognition intervention without in vivo exercises and control). Subjects will receive assessments at baseline, 6 weeks (mid-point), completion of training (12 weeks), and the 3-month follow up.
This study will assess the effectiveness of an experimental treatment intervention for adolescents and adults who have experienced their first episode of psychosis during the past two years. The DUP sub-study will collect pathways to care information that will be used to inform the development and pilot testing of strategies that aim to reduce DUP among individuals experiencing a first episode of psychosis.
The main objective is to investigate if the brain activation signature of a typical antipsychotic agent is dissociable from a newer drug with a pharmacological profile that differs from both typical and atypical antipsychotics since it is a potent partial D2 agonist. The method used to study this will be functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
This is an exploratory clinical investigation. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the safety, steady-state pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of metyrosine (Demser®) for the treatment of psychosis in patients with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS).