Active clinical trials for "Mental Disorders"

Psychosis is a mental health problem that causes people to perceive or interpret things differently from those around them, often involving hallucinations or delusions. Psychosis and schizophrenia are common disorders which predominantly affect younger adults. Recently, the investigators discovered that 5-10% of people with psychosis have antibodies in the blood that are capable of targeting the surface of brain cells, specific to the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor or voltage gated potassium channel complex, which the investigators believe may be causing the problem. Those positive for antibodies may have a problem with their immune system and this may prevent their brain from working normally. This trial aims to test the feasibility of removing or reducing the antibodies in patients' blood, using immunotherapy, and see if this improves symptoms of psychosis. Immunotherapy in this feasibility study will involve giving all patients steroid tablets and half of them will also receive a drug called "intravenous immunoglobulin" whereas the other half will have a procedure called "plasma exchange". The feasibility study is designed to identify which method of immunotherapy is most suitable for use in this patient population. Results from this will inform on the methodology used for a proposed larger randomised control trial.

No standard way exists to measure the quality of medical care or independent living long-term services and supports provided to persons with disabilities. This project will: provide a broader picture of how consumers with disabilities define care and care quality; measure the value of using consumers' expertise in developing, collecting, and assessing quality measures; and use this information to assist One Care providers in improving care delivered to their enrollees

The prevalence estimates for specific mental disorders and illicit drugs have been separately reported in U.S. government surveys. Less is known about the rates for specific comorbid conditions, e.g., schizophrenia and substance abuse, major depression and substance abuse, bipolar disorder and substance abuse, and anxiety disorder and substance abuse. The effects that different demographic characteristics (ethnic background, family medical history, age, living conditions [e.g., living with a single parent]) have on the prevalence of comorbid mental illness and substance abuse also have not been considered. More should be known about the duration of substance abuse in different mental illnesses among those undergoing treatment, and whether specific types of drugs are associated with specific mental illnesses. In this study, Advanced Clinical Laboratory Solutions, Inc. will investigate the prevalence rates for the specific comorbid conditions and demographic relationships described above. This multi-site, proof-of-concept cohort study will analyze urine or oral fluid samples from 1,000 subjects diagnosed with one of four mental illnesses (schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety disorder) as determined by DSM-IV (The Fourth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The samples will be analyzed for both prescription drug compliance and illicit substance abuse. Urine or oral fluid samples will be collected at three time points: 1) immediately after enrollment and obtaining informed consent, 2) randomly within 2 to 4 months of the study, and 3) at the end of the study (6 months).

The overall goal of this project is to identify intermediate phenotypes for psychosis across the schizophrenia and bipolar disorders boundary with implications for future genetic studies. Recent studies provide considerable evidence that schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder may share overlapping etiologic determinants. Identifying disease-related genetic effects is a major focus in schizophrenia and bipolar research, with enormous implications for diagnosis and treatment for these two disorders. Efforts have been multifaceted, with the ultimate goal of describing causal paths from specific genetic variants, to changes in neuronal functioning, to altered brain anatomy, to behavioral and functional impairments. Parallel efforts have identified and refined several alternative endophenotypes that are stable, heritable, have (partly) known biological substrates, and are associated with psychosis liability. Although many such endophenotypes have been individually studied in schizophrenia, and to a lesser extent in bipolar disorder, no study has comprehensively assessed a broad panel of these markers in the two disorders with parallel recruitment, and the extent to which they mark independent aspects of psychosis risk, or their overlap in the two disorders. In this research project, we will examine a broad panel of putative endophenotypes in affected individuals and their first degree, biological relatives in order to: 1) characterize the degree of familial phenotypic overlap between schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorders; 2) identify patterns of endophenotypes unique to the two disorders; and, 3) contrast the heritability of endophenotypes across the disorders. We will obtain measures of neurophysiology (e.g., eye tracking, P50 gating, PPI, and P300), neurocognition (e.g., attention/vigilance, episodic and working memory), and brain structure (e.g., volumes of gray and white matter in specified brain regions). Blood samples will also be collected and stored for formal DNA linkage analyses using the independent phenotypes identified above. All volunteers will also be given the option to donate dermal biopsies for future research studies. Establishing similarities and differences in the endophenotypic signatures within schizophrenia and bipolar families will provide important insights for future genetic studies, and clarify concepts about common and distinct aspects of pathophysiology, potentially meaningful heterogeneity with disorders, and the clinical boundaries of the two most common psychotic disorders in adult psychiatry. This line of investigation will potentially impact our conceptualization of psychotic disorders, help us make critical strides to identify the pathophysiology of psychosis, and guide development of new specific treatments targeting particular deficits.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the applicability of the Physical Activity Scale (PAS) in relation to patients with severe mental illness. The study hypothesised that physical activity levels among patients with severe mental illness was significantly lower than healthy controls. The physical activity level of patients with severe mental illness attending Aarhus University Hospital, Risskov in comparisons with healthy controls matched on gender and age was assessed with PAS.

The purpose of this study is to examine the barriers and facilitators of implementing Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) in Norwegian mental health services.

This study aims to utilize state of the art procedures such as the frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test (FSIVGTT), Bergman's Minimal Model Analysis, lipoprotein analysis, and DEXA scans to demonstrate that a newer agent, iloperidone, is devoid of the metabolic abnormalities associated with other atypical antipsychotic treatments, namely olanzapine and risperidone, and offers an advantage over these other agents.

This surveillance study is designed to detect adverse events (particularly clinically significant adverse drug reactions) occurring in clinical settings and to examine factors likely to affect the safety and efficacy of paroxetine in long-term use (1 year).

Abnormalities in the re-uptake of dopamine and serotonin have been described in various neuropsychiatric disorders and substance abuse. [I-123] Beta-CIT is a recently developed radioligand for SPECT imaging of dopamine and serotonin transporters. [I-123]Beta-CIT SPECT has been used at the SPECT-lab of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch in over fifty subjects without adverse events. Due to the trace concentrations used, a pharmacological effect of Beta-CIT is unlikely and has not been observed. The purpose of this study is to use Beta-CIT and SPECT to study the expression of dopamine and serotonin transporters in vivo in normal controls and various patient populations to address hypothesized abnormalities of the transporters in different disorders and to understand the effects of genetic variations in the genes of these transporters on their in vivo expression.

Risperidone is an important medication used to treat children with psychiatric illnesses or neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism. Despite excellent symptom control, the potential for side effects is worrisome. Treating these disorders is difficult because not everyone responds the same way to the same risperidone dose. One reason for this is genetic differences in how people break down the drug. Understanding these differences will help clinicians choose a dose and better predict the response so patients will be treated successfully with a lower risk for side effects. This study will research these genetic differences in children with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders. Hypothesis: The inter-patient variability in risperidone pharmacokinetics and exposure, adverse events, and clinical response in patients with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders is associated with identifiable pharmacogenetic factors, such as CYP2D6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).