Active clinical trials for "Antisocial Personality Disorder"

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) is effective for reducing risk of criminal recidivism and improving other health-related outcomes (substance use, mental health, housing, and employment problems) among justice-involved Veterans entering residential mental health treatment programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Substance use among criminal offenders constitutes a major public health problem and is tied to negative consequences for offenders, their families, and their communities. One of the direst of these consequences is repeated incarceration; thus, interventions that reduce criminal recidivism are needed. Forensic populations are often viewed with considerable therapeutic pessimism. However, offenders exhibit heterogeneity in personality traits, and the assessment of individual differences among offenders may provide valuable information that guides the use of psychotherapeutic interventions. Among offenders, psychopathy has emerged as an important personality construct for the understanding of violence and criminal recidivism. Moreover, core traits of psychopathy such as lack of empathy, deceitfulness, and lack of remorse may have negative implications for the efficacy of psychosocial interventions. A foundational premise of the present work is that understanding the moderating role of psychopathic traits on substance use treatment outcomes among offenders is essential to determining what works, and for whom. The current proposal is a Phase II randomized clinical trial that aims to examine the impact of psychopathic traits on the efficacy of a brief substance use intervention for offenders in a jail diversion program. Hypotheses that will be examined include: 1) that a Motivational Interviewing (MI) - based treatment will reduce substance use and related consequences relative to a Standard Care only condition, 2) that the reduction in substance use in the intervention group will mediate a reduction in later criminal recidivism relative to the Standard Care condition, and 3) that core psychopathic traits will moderate the efficacy of the intervention such that individuals with lower levels of these traits will derive greater benefits with regard to decreased substance use, decreased drug use consequences, and decreased criminal recidivism at a one-year follow-up.

This trial is a continuation of the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (MTA Study). Continuation Aim 1 is to track the persistence of intervention-related effects as the MTA sample matures into mid-adolescence, including subsequent mental-health and school-related service utilization patterns as a function of MTA treatment experience (treatment assignment) and outcome (degree of treatment success at 14 mo.). Aim 2 is to test specific hypotheses about predictors, mediators, and moderators of long-term outcome among children with ADHD (e.g., comorbidity; family functioning; cognitive skills; peer relations) that may influence adolescent functioning (either independent of or through initial treatment assignment and/or 14-month treatment outcomes); and to compare how these predictors, mediators, and moderators are similar or dissimilar within the normal comparison group. Aim 3 is to track the patterns of risk and protective factors (including their mediation or moderation by initial treatment assignment and/or outcome) involved in early and subsequent stages of developing substance-related disorders and antisocial behavior. Aim 4 is to examine the effect of initial treatment assignment and degree of treatment success on later academic performance, achievement, school conduct, tendency to drop out, and other adverse school outcomes. In the original MTA design, patients were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions: (1) medication only; (2) psychosocial only; (3) combined (medication and psychosocial); or (4) Assessment-and-Referral condition. All but the latter were treated intensively for 14 months, with assessments for all subjects at baseline, 3, 9, 14, and 24 months. The original MTA design thus provides short-term (10 months post-treatment) follow-up at 24 months. This continuation extends the follow-up to assessments at 36, 60, and 84 months after treatment. A child may be eligible for this study if he/she: Is 7 - 9 years old, and has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

This is a 2 -year NIDA funded grant (Co-PIs: Joseph P. Newman, John Curtin, and Carl Lejuez) that examines whether recent progress in characterizing the cognitive deficits associated with psychopathic and externalizing offenders may be used to develop better therapeutic interventions to treat their substance abuse and other self-control problems. Inmates with externalizing or psychopathy will receive one of two computer-based interventions to remediate the core cognitive skills that have been linked to self-regulation deficits in the two groups. One intervention (ACC) targets the affective cognitive control deficits associated with externalizing offenders whereas the other intervention (ATC) targets the attention to context deficits associated with psychopathic offenders. The specific components of the project include: selection and randomization of inmates; pre- and post-treatment behavioral and brain-related (ERP and Startle) measures to evaluate the impact and specificity of the ACC and ATC treatments; and 6 sessions of behavioral (e.g. computerized) and verbal training in ACC or ATC.

In a double blind randomized clinical trial with cross-over design, treatment using naratriptan will be compared to placebo within a group of 30 convicts with psychiatric disorders such as psychosis or psychopathy with repeated aggressive outbursts resistant to conventional psychopharmacologic and other psychotherapeutic treatment. Hypothesis is that addition of naratriptan to the individual treatment regime reduces aggression -and improves general outcome- as compared to addition of placebo and is well tolerated in this group and under these conditions.

The objectives of this project are as follows: To assess whether omega-3 dietary supplementation for six months can reduce externalizing behavior problems (antisocial and aggressive behavior) in schoolchildren aged 8 to 18, both at the end of treatment and six months post-treatment To assess whether omega-3 supplementation is more effective in children with more psychopathic-like traits.

The Youth Empowerment Solutions for Positive Youth Development (YES) Study , is a randomized controlled trial that compares youth in standard after school programs offering activity choice (e.g. sports, academic enrichment, arts) to youth assigned to an after school program that includes training in community development, formation of intergenerational partnerships and experience conducting community improvement projects. The study aims are to: 1) implement and evaluate an empirically developed intervention for empowering youth (YES) using a randomized controlled trial design in a high risk urban and suburban sample; 2) test a conceptual model that posits a causal relationship from youth empowerment processes to positive developmental outcomes; and 3) follow youth over time to assess sustainability of gains in healthy development. Developmental outcomes will be assessed at baseline, curriculum completion and at three and nine months post-intervention. This study will be referred to as the Genesee County Afterschool Study (GCAS) in recruitment, consents, assents and promotional materials. The study compares different types of after school programs, and we will be randomly assigning students into two groups, 1) the "regular" 21st Century Afterschool programs and 2) the "regular" 21st Century Afterschool programs with the YES supplement. We do not want to bias desirability of the random groups by naming one of the groups to be tested in the study name. Therefore, in documents we will refer to the study as the "Genesee County Afterschool Study (GCAS)." Study hypotheses: Youth in the YES intervention arm will demonstrate increased intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral empowerment than youth in the comparison group arm. Youth in the YES intervention arm will demonstrate higher scores on the positive developmental outcome variables, and lower scores on the negative developmental outcome variables, than youth in the comparison group arm. Behavioral empowerment will partially mediate the relations between intrapersonal and interactional empowerment and youth developmental outcomes, such that youth with greater intrapersonal and interactional empowerment skills will demonstrate increased behavioral empowerment, which in turn will result in higher scores on positive developmental outcome variables, and lower scores on negative developmental outcome variables.

A pharmacoimaging study of oxytcoin in antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy

It has been demonstrated that behavior on the AlAn's (altruism-antisocial) game is related to Moral Elevation response. Moral Elevation is a positive response to another's act of generosity "of charity, gratitude, fidelity, generosity or any other strong display of virtue". The constellation of emotional, physical and psychological aspects of a Moral Elevation response have been well described. Moral Elevation can be elicited with stimulus stories or videos and measured with self-report questionnaires. The experience of Moral Elevation is associated with subsequent prosocial and affiliative behaviors. Additionally, the research has linked Moral Elevation response with behavior on the AlAn's game. This study will test whether behavior on the AlAn's Short Game v.2 is related to Moral Elevation response and extend prior work by testing whether viewing the Moral Elevation stimulus prior to playing the AlAn's Short Game v.2 is associated with differences in game behavior. The study will also test whether psychopathic traits will correlate with game behavior.

The goal of this clinical trial was to learn about the effect of maltreatment on psychological and brain characteristics in a group of children. The main question it aims to answer are: which are the clinical characteristics of maltreated children before and after a psychological intervention? what changes in brain emotional processing after a psychological intervention? and what is the effect of serotonin transporter variants after a psychological therapy? Participants were assessed before and after intervention with: clinical measures of anxiety, depression post-traumatic stress and callous-unemotional traits functional neuroimaging techniques to measure brain activity. A sample of buccal epithelial cells to obtain information on serotonin transporter. Researchers will compare maltreated children with a group on non-maltreated children to see if there are differences on psychological characteristics and on brain activity before treatment.