Active clinical trials for "Depressive Disorder, Major"

Since antidepressants and antipsychotics have common receptorial mechanisms of action (H1 antagonism, 5HT2 antagonism), the impact of antidepressants in terms of metabolic syndromes is a matter of concern. The main objective of this study is to assess the differential impact of antidepressants in terms of weight gain and metabolic syndromes.

As of May 21st, 2012, the purpose of this study is to test the antidepressant effect of ketamine when given repeatedly over a period of 1 week, as well as the use of Lithium as a relapse-prevention strategy for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) who respond to an initial series of ketamine infusions. Ketamine is a Food and Drug Administration approved anesthetic (a drug used to produce loss of consciousness before and during surgery). Ketamine is not approved for the treatment of major depressive disorder and is considered experimental in this study.

The primary purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy in treating patients with Major Depressive Disorder of one or more doses of Lu AA24530 relative to placebo

The primary purpose of this study is to compare the long-term efficacy and safety of desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release versus placebo in adults with Major Depressive Disorder, using a randomized withdrawal design. Randomized withdrawal means that after receiving desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release for a predetermined period of time, subjects will be selected by chance to either continue receiving the study drug or to be withdrawn from the study drug and receive placebo for the remainder of their participation in the trial. Subjects will not know to which group they have been assigned. The study consists of an up to 14-day screening period followed by an 8-week open-label period in which subjects will knowingly receive 50 mg/day of desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release. Subjects who do not respond to treatment, demonstrating no significant change in their depressive symptoms, will be withdrawn from participation at the end of this period. Responding subjects will receive an additional 3 months of open-label desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release at the same dose. Subjects with stable response to treatment at the conclusion of this 3 month period will be randomized to either desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release at 50 mg/day or placebo in a blinded manner for an additional 6 months or until symptoms of depression return. Following discontinuation at any point after enrollment in the study, subjects will receive two weeks of follow-up monitoring, including one week of blinded taper with 25 mg/day of desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release treatment for any subjects who have been taking desvenlafaxine succinate sustained release prior to discontinuation. Subjects assigned to placebo will receive a blinded placebo taper. Following taper, subjects will be evaluated for one additional week to monitor safety.

This study is a randomized, controlled trial of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) versus Health-Enhancement Program (HEP) for patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD). Both arms of the study will continue to receive the standard medication management treatment as usual (TAU) throughout the study. MBCT is a new technique that has been found to be effective for prevention of relapse in individuals in complete recovery from depression. MBCT is a group-based, 8-week intervention that uses mindfulness meditation as its core therapeutic ingredient. It teaches people to have a different relationship to depressive thoughts and feelings. This study will use an active condition called the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) which was specifically developed to serve as a comparison condition for mindfulness interventions. HEP has been shown to decrease global stress levels and to increase perceived health. Stress has been considered a contributor to depression. One hundred and seventy four patients with MDD who have failed two or more adequate antidepressant trials will be identified and randomly assigned to one of two groups: MBCT+TAU or HEP+TAU. All patients who enroll in the study will undergo follow-up assessments at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months following the intervention. A supplemental portion of the study will enroll 88 patients to undergo functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) scans immediately before and after treatment to better understand the neural pathways implicated in depression and those that may be affected through treatment.

The purpose of this study is to see if creatine, which is a naturally occurring chemical in the body, is effective for treating Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in female teenagers. Creatine may have effects of interest in the brain. The reason for the MRI component of this study is to learn about new ways to see inside the brain. The investigators will use magnetic fields and radio waves to look at the brain and chemicals in the brain. The investigators hope that this technique will have medial use in the future. The primary hypothesis of the study is that oral creatine supplementation will have a beneficial effect as adjunctive therapy in female adolescents with MDD who are non-responders to an adequate trial of the SSRIs Fluoxetine or Escitalopram.

The primary purpose is to study the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of LY2216684 as an adjunctive treatment for participants with major depressive disorder (MDD), who were identified as partial responders to an adequate course of treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) (as defined by history).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the (cost)effectiveness of mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) compared to that of antidepressant medication, and its combination with regard to the prevention of relapse or recurrence in patients with recurrent depression.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of an inflammatory and a psychosocial stressor and the combination thereof on mood in healthy young and elderly participants and patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

This pilot, open label investigation evaluates the safety and efficacy of a new form of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Both the efficacy and adverse cognitive effects of ECT are highly contingent on the intracerebral current paths and current density of the ECT stimulus. However, the impedance of the skull and individual differences in skull anatomy severely limit the spatial targeting of stimulation, and create marked individual differences in intracerebral current density. To address these problems, the investigators are exploring various means of overcoming this limitation. An approach is to modify the electrical stimulus to induce focal seizures. The most common methods of ECT administration in the US use a bidirectional, constant current, brief pulse, with large (approximately 3 sq. in. surface area) and identically sized and shaped electrodes. In contrast, in this protocol the investigators have coupled unidirectional current flow with an electrode geometry involving a small and large electrode that differ by more than 3:1 in surface area. Unidirectional currents were widely used in ECT during the, 1940's and continue to be used in European and American devices today. Transcranial electrical stimulation can be made focal by stimulating with an anode-cathode arrangement, with the electrodes differing in surface area. The investigators have shown in nonhuman primates the capacity to produce focal frontal seizure induction under conditions when a unidirectional current flows from a small anterior anode (placed on the forehead over the nasion) to a large posterior cathode just anterior to the motor strip. Furthermore, the investigators expect that some, if not all, of these seizures do not result in motor convulsions. Thirty outpatients referred for ECT will participate. Relative to concurrent reference data from our ongoing ECT protocols, the investigators hypothesize that acute and subacute adverse cognitive effects of FEAST will be substantially less than those in patients receiving state-of-the art ECT, but with a traditional bidirectional, nonfocal stimulus. The investigators also hypothesize that the majority of patients will remit with FEAST. Thus, by improving the efficiency of the ECT stimulus with the switch to unidirectional current and the use of a new electrode geometry, the investigators expect to be able to induce focal seizures. The investigators hypothesize that this pilot study will provide evidence that this treatment is superior to traditional ECT in having lower dosing requirements and a superior side effect profile.