View clinical trials related to Schizophrenia.
Filter by:Suicide rates among Veterans with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) are intractably high, representing a serious public health concern and a critical target for interventions. Yet, at present available treatments offer modest benefits. Thus, there remains an urgent need to identify novel approaches to address suicide risk in this population. Previous reports have linked suicide risk with poor social functioning. Emerging evidence from basic affective neuroscience research has indicated that effective social functioning is contingent on intact emotion awareness. Consistent with these findings, individuals with SMI at risk of suicide display social functioning difficulties along with poor emotion awareness (i.e., alexithymia). Employing a proof-of-concept design, the aim of the present study is to test the feasibility and acceptability of a novel, blended psychoeducation and digital mHealth (mobile health) intervention with smartphones designed to target alexithymia and poor social functioning to reduce suicide risk in Veterans with SMI.
Purpose of the study: Evaluate the effect of deep repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (deep rTMS; hereafter abbreviated as "dTMS") on synaptic density measured with positron emission tomography (PET) and the radiotracer [11C]UCB-J. The investigators also seek to link plasticity changes in the regions targeted by the electric field (especially, the insula) to changes in the functioning of insula circuits and behavioral cigarette usage in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). Importance of the study: This is the first study designed to directly evaluate the mechanism of action (MOA) of dTMS for smoking disruption in patients with SCZ. Patients with SCZ are a vulnerable population in high, immediate need of new smoking therapeutics for reducing premature morbidity and mortality.
This study will use a systematic music therapy intervention on patients with mental illness trying to help them with their internalized stigma.
The goal of this clinical trial is to test whether gaming intervention works well for persons with psychotic disorder. The main question to be answered is whether gaming works well in improving functioning, some other clinical outcomes or causing any adverse effects. Researchers will compare gaming group to usual care.
Despite overwhelming evidence for neurocognitive and neurophysiological factors involved in the etiology of psychosis, these factors have never been examined as mechanisms of improvement from CBTp. The first aim in the present study is to examine neurophysiological outcomes from CBTp using electroencephalography (EEG). The second aim is to examine neurocognitive outcomes from CBTp. This is an open-label pilot study. Twenty participants will receive CBTp and will be assessed at baseline and after 4 months.
People with mental disorders face frequent stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors from others . In response to this, they tend to isolate themselves, with the risk of impeding care and the process of recovery and integration into society . Stigmatization can also be assimilated by patients themselves - i.e. self-stigma. Self-stigma is involved in diminished coping skills that lead to social avoidance and difficulties in adhering to care . Reducing self-stigma and its emotional corollary, shame, is thus crucial to attenuate the disability associated with mental illness. Shame is inherent to self-stigma and leads to difficulties in adhering to care as well as greater severity of clinical presentations . Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy that targets shame reduction and hostile self-to-self relationship and allows for symptom improvement while increasing self-compassion, a major resilience factor . Although shame is a prominent part of the concept of self-stigma, the efficacy of CFT has never been evaluated in individuals with high levels of self-stigma. In this study, the investigators will evaluate the efficacy and acceptability of a group based CFT program on decreasing self-stigma, compared to treatment as usual (TAU) and a psychoeducation program whose efficacy has been assessed in a previous trial.
The goal of this clinical trial is to assess the efficacy and safety of hippocampus-targeted deep brain stimulation (DBS) in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The main question it aims to answer are: - whether patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia can benefit from hippocampus-targeted DBS; - what is the neural and electrophysiological mechanism underlying the treatment effect of hippocampus-targeted DBS.
The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate if the investigational drug, RL-007, can improve the cognitive performance of subjects with schizophrenia. The main questions the study aims to answer are: 1. Does RL-007 improve subjects performance in a set of cognitive tasks? 2. Which dose of RL-007 (20 mg or 40 mg) has a larger effect on cognitive performance? 3. How well do subjects tolerate RL-007? In the study, subjects will perform the cognitive tasks at the beginning to get familiar with the tasks. Then, subjects will be given either RL-007 or a placebo for 6 weeks and then repeat the cognitive tasks. The researchers will compare the results at the end of the treatment period to the baseline to see if there have been any changes in performance. Additionally, several safety measures will be collected throughout the study (blood pressure, physical exam, ECGs, etc) to evaluate if there are any side effects from taking RL-007.
Around 40% of schizophrenia patients present depressive symptoms, which are associated with elevated suicide and violence risk and poor prognosis and quality of life. Recent meta-analysis showed the effect size of antidepressants for depressive symptoms of schizophrenia patients was as low as 0.25, so new therapeutic approach is warranted. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive, anesthesia-free brain stimulation therapy for treatment refractory depression. Currently, rTMS is classified as high-frequency stimulation (>5Hz, usually 10Hz or 20Hz) and low-frequency inhibition (usually 1Hz). Intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) is a new variant of rTMS, with stimulation frequency as high as 50Hz. Compared with high-frequency rTMS, iTBS has similar therapeutic effect and shorter stimulation duration. Up to now, studies exploring treatment effect of rTMS or iTBS for schizophrenia patients mainly focused on negative symptoms rather than depressive symptoms. Therefore, this study aims to explore treatment effect of rTMS or iTBS of depressive symptoms, negative symptoms, cognitive function and physiological indices for schizophrenia patients.
Psychosis is a severe mental health problem. Symptoms of psychosis include hallucinations (e.g. hearing voices that others cannot hear) and delusions (unusual, often troubling beliefs). People who experience psychosis often have times when their symptoms are relatively stable. At other times, their symptoms may increase and become much more problematic (a 'relapse'). Helping people with psychosis to stay well (preventing relapses) is an important and time-consuming challenge for mental health services. Smartphones and other digital technologies are now widespread. This offers a solution to help tackle the overwhelming demand on services and to enable people with psychosis to access mental health support when they need it most (e.g. when relapsing). Research shows that people with psychosis are often willing to report their symptoms using a smartphone app. Apps like this can alert health professionals when someone needs extra support, but can be burdensome to use long-term. The investigators want to make a system that is less burdensome and is personalised to users' needs and experiences (a 'complex digital remote monitoring system'). Recent research shows that information gathered routinely by individuals' smartphones (e.g. GPS, step count) might help predict relapses of psychosis. The investigators want to use this method in a complex digital remote monitoring system. First, the investigators need to know what people with psychosis and mental health staff think about this idea. The investigators will interview around sixty adults with psychosis and around forty staff, recruited from UK mental health services (Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, London, Sussex). These one-off, audio-recorded interviews will last up to 60 minutes. The interviewer will ask about participants' views on complex digital remote monitoring. The investigators will then systematically analyse the interviews. Findings will inform the design of the investigators' own complex digital remote monitoring system and future digital tools designed by other researchers. NIHR and Wellcome are funding this study.