View clinical trials related to Schizophrenia.
Filter by:Social impairments are core features of schizophrenia that lead to poor outcome. Social skills and competence improve quality of life and protect against stress-related exacerbation of symptoms, while supporting resilience, interpersonal interactions, and social affiliation. To improve outcome, it is necessary to remediate social deficits. Existing psychosocial interventions are moderately effective but the effort-intensive nature (high burden), low adherence, and weak transfer of skills to everyday life present significant hurdles toward recovery. Thus, there is a dire need to develop effective, engaging and low-burden social interventions for people with schizophrenia that will result in better compliance rates and functional outcome. In a previous pilot study, the investigators tested the effectiveness of a novel adaptive virtual reality (VR) intervention in improving targeted social cognitive function (social attention, as indexed by eye scanning patterns) in individuals with schizophrenia. 10 sessions of 1-hour VR intervention were sufficient to engage the target mechanism of social attention and improve negative symptoms. Acceptability and compliance were very high among the participants. ' The next phase, supported by a R33 grant will compare the VR social skills training with a control condition. This new protocol includes a control condition for the exposure to computerized training across the 10 sessions and incidental exposure to social interactions (i.e. interactions with experimenters twice a week for 5 weeks) by including a control condition, which involves computerized brain fitness training for 10 sessions.
The purpose of this study is to better understand mental illness and will test the hypotheses that while viewing affective stimuli, patient groups will show increased blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal by fMRI after lorazepam. This study will enroll participants between the ages of 16 and 60, who have a psychotic illness (such as psychosis which includes conditions like schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and mood disorders). The study will also enroll eligible participants without any psychiatric illness, to compare their brains. The study will require participants to have 3-4 sessions over a few weeks. The initial assessments (may be over two visits) will include a diagnostic interview and several questionnaires (qols) to assess eligibility. Subsequently, there will will be two separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions in which lorazepam or placebo will be given prior to the MRI. During the fMRI the participants will also be asked to answer questions. Additionally, the participants will have their blood drawn, women of child bearing potential will have a urine pregnancy test, vital signs taken, and asked to complete more qols.
The goal if the project is to develop a learning health network devoted to the treatment of first episode psychosis.
Objective: Hyperprolactinemia(HPRL) which can result in a series of prolactin-related symptoms is a frequent adverse effect of antipsychotics. The investigators are interested to explicate the characteristics of serum prolactin level change after taking different antipsychotics and related factors. Method: 1. Review of electronic medical records of schizophrenia patients who were brought to Shanghai Mental Health Center since January 1, 2007. 2. The investigators collect their information, and then 1. set serum prolactin level after first 1-month antipsychotic treatment as primary outcome. Secondary outcomes are prolactin levels tested at other time points. 2. Variables will range from antipsychotic kinds, dosage, treatment duration and blood concentration to demographic information, to disease history, to clinical treatment on hyperprolactinemia, to laboratory test results, such as blood routine examination, biochemistry, sex hormone levels and so on. 3. After data cleaning and management, we will apply logistic regression, cox regression, Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC) and machine learning to - analyze factors of prolactin level; - establish a model of prolactin change with time; - propose optimal monitoring time of prolactin according to prolactin change with time; - analyze correlation among antipsychotics, prolactin and clinical characters, for the purpose to supply objective evidence for antipsychotic treatment.
The primary objective will be to evaluate effectiveness, safety and acceptability of FMT on depressive symptoms at 2 months follow-up in SZ patients with resistant MD.
Higher rates and severity of tobacco dependence in people with schizophrenia, as compared with the general population, contribute to the lower life expectancy seen in this population. Dependent tobacco smoking is controlled by how different aspects of cigarette smoking are perceived. There is evidence suggesting that people with schizophrenia differ in how they perceive cigarette smoking, which, if confirmed, would have implications for tailoring treatment interventions for smoking cessation in schizophrenia.
The goals of this study is to determine (1) if differences in D2/3 receptor affinity states exist between medication-free subjects with SCH (MF-S) compared with healthy controls (HC), (2) the degree to which pre- and post-synaptic factors contribute to increased striatal dopamine (DA) signaling in MF-S and (3) to test the hypotheses that optimal DA transmission in the dorsal caudate (DCA) is necessary for normal working memory (WM) function.
Negative symptoms (e.g. diminished pleasure and motivation) are common in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Little is known about the psychological mechanisms involved in negative symptom development and maintenance and there is limited evidence for current treatment options. Some research suggests that difficulties with metacognitionÍž the capacity to develop and use complex ideas about oneself and others, may predict experiences of negative symptoms. This study will investigate whether Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT) improves metacognition in people experiencing negative symptoms, and if metacognitive changes lead to observable differences in behavioural manifestations of negative symptoms (e.g. low activity levels). Data will be collected via standardised assessments of metacognition and negative symptoms. Activity levels will be measured with actigraphy, which has been shown to capture differential activity patterns for individuals who experience negative symptoms compared to control groups. An assessment will also be made of whether improvements in specific aspects of metacognition (e.g. self-reflectivity) relate to changes in individual negative symptoms, such as motivation levels, and other markers of personal change, including personal and social performance, insight, and beliefs about recovery. Additionally, factors that may have impacted on the study results, such as therapist adherence to the treatment, will be reported. Eligible patients with capacity to consent will be recruited from the inpatient rehabilitation psychology services in National Health Service (NHS) Greater Glasgow and Clyde. They will be aged 18 or over, have a schizophrenia spectrum disorder diagnosis, and experience current negative symptoms. The target sample size is up to 8 patients. Participants will be measured at baseline and will receive up to 26 sessions of the MERIT treatment approach. Any therapeutic change will be observed via changes from assessments at baseline to the assessments in the initial, middle and last therapy sessions, and also metacognitive assessments at two other randomly selected time-points during therapy.
To objectify UR biomarkers, we propose a longitudinal follow-up of resistant patients with schizophrenia, starting before the onset of clozapine and including a multimodal brain imaging assessment (T1 and T2 weighted sequences, DTI, ASL-Perfusion, fMRI- Rest) associated with clinical and biological monitoring. In order to correct the MRI signal of clozapine hemodynamic effects, we will develop a new MRI methodology based on the concomitant collection of physiological parameters (blood pressure, electrocardiogram and respiration).
Background: Negative symptoms are typically observed in people with schizophrenia and indicate a loss or reduction of a normal function (e.g. reduced motivation and affect display). Despite being important predictors of people's recovery the development of interventions for negative symptoms received only very limited attention. There are currently no evidenced based therapies for these symptoms. Aims: To test the feasibility and acceptability of a novel virtual reality assisted therapy, called Virtual Reality Supported Therapy for the Negative Symptoms of Psychosis (V-NeST). Methods: This is a single (rater) blind randomised study with two conditions; V-NeST plus treatment-as-usual (TAU) vs. TAU alone. The study will recruit people with psychosis from NHS community care teams (in England). Assessments will be at baseline and 3-month post-randomisation. A nested qualitative study to identify the key themes associated with the acceptability of the overall study and intervention will be conducted. The study will assess key feasibility parameters such as: consent and availability for screening; eligibility; availability for assessment, randomisation and treatment retention. Acceptability will be assessed by considering: therapy session attendance and drop-out; in-depth feedback from service users interviews; acceptability of the research procedures and measures. Participants will be assessed with measures of functioning levels and, negative symptoms . Analyses will evaluate the feasibility and analyses of clinical outcomes will be focused on descriptive statistics and confidence intervals for treatment effects. Population variances of the main outcomes will be estimated for future power calculations. A semi-structured interview will explore participants' experience of being recruited to the study, receiving V-NeST and identify barriers (and potential solutions) to treatment engagement.