Effects of Galantamine on Cognition

Schizophrenia Clinical Trial

Official title:

Effects of Galantamine on Cognition

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01100775
• Other study ID #: HP-00044959
• Secondary ID: 1P50MH082999-01
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 2
• Start date: May 2010
• Est. completion date: August 21, 2014

Study information

• Verified date: May 2022
• Source: University of Maryland, Baltimore
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Schizophrenia is a chronic disorder with onset of psychosis occurring in late teen early twenties, with cognitive impairments and negative symptoms frequently emerging much earlier. Such cognitive impairments and negative symptoms but much milder are also observed in high-risk groups (such as relatives of schizophrenia patients), who may or may not develop the full blown psychotic disorder. Our study plans to recruit such non-ill subjects to test the effects of galantamine on clinical/physiological/cognitive measures. This study serves several goals: If a drug is found effective in treating subtle deficits, then it will provide treatment strategy in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders and for early intervention in schizophrenia. In addition, one of the difficulties of testing a drug on schizophrenia is that patients take other medications (i.e., antipsychotic drugs) that can change the effects of the test drug. The proposed study will be in subjects who will not be taking antipsychotic medications. Our study will be carried out in two sessions, at least one month apart. Subjects will be randomly assigned to the two possible order of administration: the drug and then placebo, or the placebo and then drug. Subjects will be given a lead-in 3 days of 4mg/ twice a day of galantamine (or placebo) followed by 8 mg (or placebo) on the 4th day, the day of testing. We will administer a battery of clinical/cognitive/neurophysiological tests after the 8 mg drug dose.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 12
• Est. completion date: August 21, 2014
• Est. primary completion date: August 21, 2014
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 64 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• age range of 18-64 (confirmed by drivers license or other form of identification)
• the presence of 3 or more SSP symptoms (at least 2 of the SSP symptoms will be negative symptoms as defined by the schizoid traits)
• the presence of visuospatial working memory impairment as defined by error in the oculomotor delayed response (ODR) task of more than 0.5 SD above the mean values in healthy control subjects
• relative of an individual with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophreniform disorder
• able to provide written informed consent (ESC score 10 or above)

Exclusion Criteria:

• subjects meeting criteria for a life-time diagnosis of any one of the DSM IV, Axis I psychotic disorders (exceptions being a single past episode of major depressive disorder with psychotic features or psychotic symptoms associated with substance abuse with the substance abuse ending 6-months prior to study participation) (this is for the SSP recruitment)
• subjects meeting DSM-IV criteria for current alcohol or substance dependence (other than nicotine) within the last 6 months or DSM-IV criteria for alcohol or substance abuse (other than nicotine) within the last month
• medical conditions that preclude participation in drug trials or assessments of outcome measures (including significant brain, cardiac, liver, lung, endocrinological or metabolic disorders)
• received any investigational drug in the preceding four weeks
• pregnant or of childbearing age and not using a medically approved form of birth control

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Schizophrenia

Intervention

Drug:
• Galantamine
A lead-in 3 days of 4mg/ twice a day of galantamine (or placebo) followed by 8 mg (or placebo) on the 4th day, the day of testing.
• Placebo
Subjects will be randomly assigned to the two possible order of administration: the drug and then placebo, or the placebo and then drug. Subjects will be given a lead-in 3 days of 4mg/ twice a day of galantamine (or placebo) followed by 8 mg (or placebo) on the 4th day, the day of testing.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Maryland, Baltimore	Baltimore	Maryland

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Maryland, Baltimore	National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	RVIP Target Hit and False Alarm (Number of Responses)	Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) measures primarily sustained attention but perhaps also working memory. The task was continuous stimuli presentation of a stream of single digits (from 1 to 9) presented in the center of the computer monitor at a rate of 1/600milliseconds; the subjects respond when the they see a target sequence of 3 odds or 3 evens in consecutive sequence. Two target sequences are separated by a minimum and maximum of 30 non-target digits.	25 minutes (duration needed to complete this test)
Primary	RVIP Reaction Times (ms)	Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) measures primarily sustained attention but perhaps also working memory. The task was continuous stimuli presentation of a stream of single digits (from 1 to 9) presented in the center of the computer monitor at a rate of 1/600milliseconds; the subjects respond when the they see a target sequence of 3 odds or 3 evens in consecutive sequence. Two target sequences are separated by a minimum and maximum of 30 non-target digits.	25 minutes (total duration to test RVIP)
Primary	Trust Game (Dollar Amount Earned)	Participants compete in a social trust game in which they are paired with a partner (the computer program). Over the course of 24 rounds he participant can offer up to $10 to their partner. The partner can either accept the offer, in which case the total amount offered is split equally between the participant and their partner (i.e. $10 is split into $5 each). Or the partner can reject the offer and receive a portion of the toal offer for themselves and give the participant nothing ($0). The total amount of money that can be offered ranges from $0-240.	20 minutes (total duration of the trust game cognitive test)
Primary	Brief Assessment of Cognition for Schizophrenia (BACS) Score	The BACS Symbol Coding subtest will be used to assess processing speed, and the demographically corrected T score, will be used for data analysis. This test requires less than 5 minutes to administer adn provides a highly reliable measure of processing speed. There are nine symbols coded 1 through 9. Participants are given 90 seconds to match a series of these symbols with their corresponding number. The total correct matches in the participants score. Scores range from 0-110.	5 minutes (duration needed to complete the assessment)
Primary	Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) Score	HVLT comes in 6 different forms. Forms 4 and 5 were used for this study with one form administered on the first day and the other on the second and were counterbalanced between subjects. Each form contains 12 nouns, four words each from one of three semantic categories, to be learned over the course of three learning trials.	15 minutes (duration needed to complete this test)
Primary	Reading the Mind in the Eyes Score (Number of Correct Responses)	A 30 item task presents a picture of a person's eyes and the participant is asked to determine the person's mental state from 4 multiple choice options.	10 minutes (duration needed to complete the test)
Primary	The Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT) Score (Number of Correct Responses)	The Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT) is a 5-minute, 12-item screening test. Participants try to identify 12 different odors with four multiple choice options given for each odor.	5 minutes (duration usually needed to complete this test)
Secondary	Social Affiliation Measured by Social Affiliative Role Play (Rating Scale Score)	In a videotaped session, research staff engages the participant in social interaction based on a role play. The tape is rated on social skills and on Positive and Negative Affect Scale. participants are rated on a 5 point likert scale ranging from very poor (1) to very good (5)	30 minutes (time needed to complete this test)
Secondary	Facial Affect Recognition Score (Number of Responses)	This computer administered test includes 40 color photogralhs of four emotions (happy, sad, angry, and fearful) balanced for the posers gender, age and ethnicity, including four low intensity and four high intensity facila expressions of each emotion, plus 8 neutral faces. The stimuli are presented in random order and subjects are asked to identify which stimuli were presented to them at the end. Performance on this test correlates with negative symptom severity	10 minutes (time usually needed to complete this test)