View clinical trials related to Schizophrenia.
Filter by:Electroconvulsive therapy has been used in clinical practice since 1938, a number of randomized trials found significant differences favoring ECT in response rates between individuals with depression receiving real and sham ECT. Results of early studies performed on patients with schizophrenia weren't so clear, only few of these trials found appreciable differences between real and sham ECT in clinical outcome. The recent, more reliable studies have found that ECT is efficacious on different symptoms which might be present in the course of schizophrenia, for example, psychotic and affective ones, as well as suicidality. The serious complications of electroconvulsive therapy are rare, however, more frequent side effects may include cognitive impairment and postictal delirium. Thus, the researchers try to develop new, more effective and less harmful procedures of ECT, like bifrontal electrodes. The available studies revealed that bifrontal ECT has equal efficacy to bitemporal ECT with less cognitive impairment, but the literature examining this placement is limited to major depressive disorder and the results are inconsistent. In the worldwide literature there is lack of studies regarding the use of bifrontal ECT among patients with schizophrenia. It is interesting how bifrontal ECT would affect axial symptoms of schizophrenia, since the electrodes in this procedure are placed over the brain areas responsible for negative symptoms. This randomized, double blind study is going to assess whether the bifrontal ECT is more effective in the treatment of positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, has less harmful impact on the cognitive functions and decrease the frequency and severity of postictal delirium comparing to the bitemporal ECT. Moreover, as the first worldwide will assess the brain dopaminergic activity with the use of PET in the patients with schizophrenia after ECT and the impact of the ECT on the concentration of such neurotrophins as brain-derived neurotrophic factor-BDNF, neuron specific enolase-NSE and protein S100B.
The purpose of the study is to test a new treatment of social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder by transcranial magnetic stimulation (theta-burst). The study will also identify clinical, psychomotor and cognitive variables that are the most sensitive to treatment, and estimate the most sensitive treatment target between patients.
The goal of this project is to evaluate an innovative psychosocial intervention package that will incorporate evidence-based treatment strategies to target the affective-motivational deficits, negative expectancies, and behavioral skills deficits that are central to the maintenance of negative symptoms. The intervention - called Engaging in Community Roles & Experiences (ENCoRE) - will include strategies aimed at teaching Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms ways to (1) overcome deficits in anticipatory pleasure, (2) increase intrinsic motivation for goal-directed activities, (3) reduce expectancies for failure, and (4) perform skillfully in new social situations, all of which can impact implementation of new skills and behaviors. Rather than develop a new set of intervention strategies, we will include within EnCoRE evidence-based strategies for these treatment domains. In addition, the investigators will collect qualitative information both from Veterans concerning their perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, and barriers to participation in EnCoRE, as well as from a sample of mental health providers who work with Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms, in order to inform a larger scale implementation trial should EnCoRE prove effective here.
This study plans to learn more about how common drugs prescribed to individuals with schizophrenia contribute to weight gain, as well as how exercise and diet impact appetite and the brain's response to food. In this study, the investigators will be evaluating how participants' brains respond to food images as well as asking questions about their food preferences and intake and clinical symptoms. The investigators may also ask participants to complete an exercise or diet intervention to see how this changes brain responses or food preferences.
This research is a Randomized, double-blind, risperidone-controlled, multicenter clinical study. Chinese subjects with Ischemic Schizophrenia.
The purpose of the study is to test a new treatment of social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder by transcranial magnetic stimulation (theta-burst). The study will also identify clinical variables, cognitive and psychomotor most sensitive to treatment, to estimate the most sensitive treatment target, assess tolerance, to assess the impact of repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) on the brain a multimodal imaging study and compare the imaging variables (resting network, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging; MRSI) between patients before treatment and healthy subjects.
It is hypothesized, that local retinoic acid (RA) homeostasis is functionally involved in the pathophysiology of depression. In a cross-sectional (and partly longitudinal) analysis, serum RA status will be assessed in healthy controls and subjects with Major Depression, Alzheimer's disease, alcoholism and in subjects with schizophrenia.
Background Paliperidone is an active metabolite of risperidone, both of which are antipsychotic agents for treatment of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. Pharmacogenetic studies have revealed that the efficacy and side effects of antipsychotic agents are related to polymorphisms of specific genes, however, there are just a few related studies on paliperidone. The current study aims to evaluate whether pharmacogenetic markers related to risperidone and genetic markers associated with schizophrenia have effects on the clinical effectiveness of paliperidone treatment. The study also uses changes of event-related potentials (ERP) as indices for clinical efficacy. Methods It is a prospective, open-label, non-randomized and uncontrolled clinical trial to study the efficacy and side effects of 6-week paliperidone ER treatment for patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. The first three weeks of treatment has to be inpatient treatment. In the first two weeks, participants will take 9 mg paliperidone ER daily. Then the dose of paliperidone can be adjusted to within the range of 6-12 mg per day. Efficacy indicators include symptom severity, global functioning, and ERP. Side effect indicators include common side effect evaluate, extrapyramidal symptoms, metabolic profiles, hormonal change, and bone metabolism indices. Participants will also receive examinations for blood drug concentration, genetic polymorphisms, and epigenetic markers.
The perception of music requires coordinated neural activities in distributed multi-functional centers across both hemispheres. The association between musical abilities and other general cognitive functions have been studied in several populations with inconsistent results. Schizophrenia is a major mental disorder that is strongly associated with cognitive deficits. These often appear before the onset of psychotic symptoms and persist throughout effective treatment of positive and negative symptoms. Like other disorders of psychosis, schizophrenia features general deficits in auditory memory and sensory processing. Recently, Sawada et al. (2014) and Wen et al. (2014) studied music abilities in Japanese and Chinese schizophrenic populations. They both used a standardized assessment for amusia called Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) and found marked impairments in perception of scale, contour, interval, rhythm, meter and memory. Both studies showed that deficits in music perception were associated with cognitive deficits and negative symptoms. In regards to positive symptoms, Wen et al., but not Sawada et al., found a significant association. The present clinical study will assess musical abilities using the MBEA in a Canadian population with and without refractory psychosis. It will explore associations between musical deficits, positive and negative psychiatric symptomology and cognition. The patient population will have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, affective disorder with psychosis or non substance-related psychosis who were referred to the British Columbia Psychosis Program (BCPP) due to inadequate or no response to at least two trials of antipsychotics. A focus on refractory psychosis may provide greater insights because these patients have relatively more pronounced psychiatric symptoms and cognitive deficits. It will also be valuable to administer the MBEA assessment on a Canadian population, because the test was originally intended for Western populations and its musical phrases were designed with Western tonalities.
Background: Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. The diagnosis and severity evaluations of schizophrenia are generally based on patient behaviors. Biomarkers are objectively measured and used as indicators for diagnosis confirmation, symptom assessment, and evaluation of pharmacologic responses to therapeutic interventions. Neuroendocrine and metabolite substrates are potential biomarkers of the pathogenic processes in schizophrenia. Aims: The aims of this study are to determine (a) the differences in neuroendocrine and metabolite substrates between patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and healthy controls; and (b) the associations among the neuroendocrine and metabolite substrates, cognitive function, clinical symptoms, and treatment responses of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Methods: (a) The investigators plan to recruit 100 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 100 healthy controls as participants. (b) At the baseline and Week 12, patient blood samples will be obtained to measure the levels of neuroendocrine substrates and metabolite markers. Clinical symptoms and cognitive function will be evaluated. (c) For the healthy control participants, blood samples will be obtained once to measure neuroendocrine and metabolite marker levels. Expected Results: The results of this study may contribute to identifying potential neuroendocrine and metabolite biomarkers of schizophrenia, and clarify the associations among the neuroendocrine and metabolite substrates, cognitive function, clinical symptoms, and treatment responses of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Such information is crucial for clinical evaluations and future research.