Active clinical trials for "Brain Diseases"

The purpose of this follow-up study is to assess the long-term safety and tolerability of galantamine in individuals with mild cognitive impairment who participated in a previous study with galantamine

OBJECTIVES: I. Assess the effect of lactulose on the circadian rhythm of plasma melatonin in patients with subclinical hepatic encephalopathy. II. Assess the intrasubject variability of circadian melatonin levels and neuropsychological tests. III. Assess which elements of the neuropsychological test battery show the response to lactulose.

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood (ANEC) is a fulminant type of encephalopathy. Most reported cases occur in Asian children with the highest prevalence among patients between the age of 6 and 18 months. The most common clinical presentations are fever, rapid alteration in the level of consciousness, and seizures, in addition to characteristic findings in brain imaging that include, but are not limited to, bilateral thalamic lesions with supra and infra-tentorial lesions of variable dimensions. The diagnosis of ANEC was determined by specific diagnostic criteria as described by Mizuguchi [1] which consist of Encephalopathy preceded by viral febrile illness with rapid deterioration in the level of consciousness and convulsions. Absent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis. Symmetric multifocal brain lesions. Elevation in serum aminotransferase levels. Exclusion of similar diseases. The ANE severity score was used to assess the severity of illness after admission for shock (3 points), brainstem lesions (2 points), age >4 years (2 points), platelet (PLT) count < 100,000 (1 point), and elevated CSF protein (1 point) was observed. [3] A total score of 9

This study will try to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a new method for achieving mild hypothermia, i.e.,mild hypothermia therapy through rectum. Half of participants will be treated by the widely-used hyper-hypothermia blanket method, while the other half will be treated by the investigators' new method.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether ornithine phenylacetate can speed recovery from an acute hepatic encephalopathy episode requiring hospitalization in cirrhotic patients.

This is a pilot study which will test the safety and feasibility of hypothermia treatment as adjunct therapy to conventional treatment of hyperammonemic encephalopathy (HAE) in neonates versus conventional treatment (dialysis, nutritional therapy, and ammonia scavenging drugs) only. The endpoint of the pilot study will be reached when either 24 patients have been enrolled and no serious adverse events were observed, when no patient has been enrolled in 5 years, or when serious adverse events occur which are clearly linked to the use of hypothermia. These would be serious complications not seen in patients on conventional therapy (dialysis , nutritional therapy, ammonia scavenging drugs) for HAE.

Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) remains a major cause of death and severe disability despite advances in neonatal and perinatal medicine. Therapeutic hypothermia is the single most promising intervention for HIE. Reduction of brain temperature by 2° to 5°C has shown to be neuroprotective in newborn and adult animal models of brain ischemia. Therapeutic hypothermia instituted within 6 hours of birth has been shown to significantly improve survival and neurodevelopmental outcome in term newborns with HIE. Hypothermia is most effective if begun during the latent period, before the secondary energy failure. It is not known whether cooling initiated after 6 hours of age is effective. The goal of this proposal is to test the efficacy of the cooling device in achieving the target temperatures in patients with moderate to severe HIE during transport when compared with current practices.

Patients with cirrhosis of the liver may suffer from a condition called hepatic encephalopathy which in its mildest form as mental slowing and impaired reaction times in driving and machinery operation. Left untreated it may lead to deep coma. The cause is not fully understood but is though to be related to the inability of a damaged liver to filter out toxins such as ammonia in the blood, which then accumulate within the brain and result in altered function and swelling within certain brain cells,astrocytes. These patients also suffer from muscle loss, which is associated with a poor outcome. L-ornithine L-aspartate(LOLA) is a licensed drug in Germany and has been shown to promote ammonia elimination from the body in the form of urea. Some experimental studies have suggested that LOLA also potentially attenuates muscle loss by incorporating ammonia into muscle in the form of glutamine. The aim of this study is to determine cognitive and nutritional effects of 12 weeks of LOLA administration and its effect on brain muscle structure and function in patients with cirrhosis.

We designed an explorative clinical study to assess the effectiveness of an enriched intense and task-oriented therapy program in enhancing motor recovery in patients with moderate to moderately severe hemiplegia after stroke. This enriched comprehensive task-specific therapy (ETT) program combines intensive and task-specific therapy with the sensory-motor, social, and cognitive stimulation inherent to environmental enrichment. We also investigated whether ETT improves gait, balance, upper and lower limb function, and confidence in task performance, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and reduces fatigue and depression.

To test the hypothesis that GLP1 can exert favourable effects on multiple aspects of brain function. To this purpose, the investigator determine whether chronic increase in GLP1 concentration as it occurs after bariatric surgery (Roux-en- Y Gastric Bypass) is associated with improvement in: cognitive function measured by Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Mental Deterioration Battery(MDB). brain glucose metabolism measured by FDG-CT/PET neuroplasticity measure by binocular rivalry and saccadic adaptation tests in morbid obese subjects. In order to discern the effect of GLP1 irrespective of changes in the metabolic milieu the investigator will test whether short-term GLP-1 infusion can modulate the same parameters in healthy subjects.