Active clinical trials for "Brain Diseases"

To determine effectiveness of therapy to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants with mild HIE. To determine the adverse effects of Therapeutic Hypothermia (TH) in mild HIE on the neonate and his/her family. Determine heterogeneity of the treatment effect across key subgroups obtained in the first 6 hours after birth prior to the decision to initiate therapy.

Ammonia is a waste product of protein and amino acid catabolism and is also a potent neurotoxin. High blood ammonia levels on the brain can manifest as cytotoxic brain edema and vascular compromise leading to intellectual and developmental disabilities. The following aims are proposed: Aim 1 of this study will be to determine the chronology of biomarkers of brain injury in response to a hyperammonemic (HA) brain insult in patients with an inherited hyperammonemic disorder. Aim 2 will be to determine if S100B, NSE, and UCHL1 are altered in patients with two other inborn errors of metabolism, Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD) and Glutaric Acidemia (GA1).

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is the most common cause of neurological damage in the neonatal period. It has an incidence of about 1.5-2.5% of livebirths in developed countries. It is associated with a high rate of mortality and morbidity. Major neurological outcomes such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, learning disabilities, epilepsy occur in approximately 25% of survivors. The diagnostic and prognostic tools currently available for enrollment have limitations and additional reliable biomarkers are needed for all phases of clinical management. Sarnat staging has taken on a role in identifying those infants who may benefit from treatment of hypothermia, resulting in the need for neurological evaluation and staging within 6 hours of life. Therapeutic hypothermia is still the best therapeutic treatment. A new tool in neuroscience research is represented by micro-ribonucleic acid (microRNA) profiling. The presence of microRNAs in blood, urine and saliva and the ability to measure their levels non-invasively has opened new doors in the search for peripheral biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of neurodegenerative diseases and also as possible pharmacological targets. The aim of the present study is to analyze a specific cluster of miRNAs selected from data obtained by macroarray (NGS Pannel) on the entire microRNAome in healthy newborns with normal cord arterial pH value (7.26-7.35) as control cases and in newborns with fetal metabolic acidosis with a pH threshold value lower than 7.12 of the blood gas analysis from cord arterial blood. This latter group will be further stratified into two groups, neonates who will practice therapeutic hypothermia according to current guidelines and a further group who will not practice therapeutic hypothermia. This study will make a further international contribution in evaluating and identifying the potential of microRNAs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in perinatal asphyxia and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. Furthermore, the study aims to identify specific microRNA sequences as new possible markers to be used as an additional parameter for the enrollment of therapeutic hypothermia, especially in cases of mild hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Patients with chronic liver disease due to hepatitis B or C viruses, Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, autoimmune hepatitis, wilson disease, cryptogenic hepatitis etc are prone to develop complications. Hepatic encephalopathy is one of such complications. It is graded into four types depending on severity of clinical features, which range through altered sleep pattern to coma. The current study aims to compare the effectiveness of lactulose enema with oral lactulose in time to recovery from higher grade of encephalopathy to lower grade of encephalopathy.

It is planned to integrate various services based on computer vision technologies for analysis of the certain type of x-ray study into Moscow Unified Radiological Information Service (hereinafter referred to as URIS). As a result of using computer vision-based services, it is expected: Reducing the number of false negative and false positive diagnoses; Reducing the time between conducting a study and obtaining a report by the referring physician; Increasing the average number of radiology reports provided by a radiologist per shift.

COLETTE is an interventional study for which blood, cerebrospinal fluid and post-mortem tissues are collected in patients with status epilepticus or epilepsy associated to dysimmune encephalitis as well as in control patients, to better understand the pathophysiology of these severe epileptic disorders.

The aim of the study is to examine if a pragmatic, evidenced based and generalisable intrapartum care bundle involving birth companions and empowering mothers will reduce birth injury-related epilepsy at 18 months of age in India. The care bundle will have four key elements (interventions): (1) birth companion providing constant 1:1 care during labour and early perinatal period; (2) fetal surveillance during active labour by a nurse or midwife using a graphic display Doppler; (3) labour management by an electronic partogram with an 'alert' and 'nag' feature based on the current WHO guidelines; (4) brain oriented early newborn care with resuscitation where indicated. The care bundle will be evaluated using a prospective interrupted time series design, recruiting 80,000 women delivering in one of the three participating centres in south India, over two years. Accurate baseline data will be collected during the first year and the optimised care bundle will be introduced during the second year. All full term newborn infants admitted to the neonatal unit with perinatal brain injury during both periods, will have detailed assessments including video electroencephalography, and magnetic resonance imaging, and will be followed up until 18 months of age. Primary outcome is the number of infants with epilepsy (categorised per current ILAE guidelines) at 18 months of age expressed as per 1000 term livebirths. The investigators will use a segmented logistic regression to divide the time series into pre- and post-intervention segments, with the intervention date as the intersection between segments. The difference in the two segments will be quantified using the level (step change) and slope (trend change). The total duration of the study is four years including 24 months of recruitment and 18 months of follow-up.

It has been identified that impaired liver function, as occurs in patients with liver cirrhosis, prevents proper conjugation of glucuronic acid with bilirubin; as a result, unconjugated bilirubin accumulates in the blood, and conjugated bilirubin is markedly altered to form diglucuronides or monoglucuronides. However, in the development and progress of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) there is not enough information about these processes and the possible concentration levels that they can take. Also Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a reversible complication, but with a high mortality rate in patients with acute or chronic liver failure, as well as a consequence of the formation of portosystemic shunts.

As a major breakthrough of acute stroke treatment over the past decade, endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) drastically improved neurological recovery and survival in patients with large vessel occlusion (LVO) ischemic strokes in major clinical trials. Nevertheless, much remained uncertain about the implementation of scientific evidence of EVT into real-world benefits. For instance, healthcare policies that influence critical time-matrices, endovascular thrombectomy techniques that may enhance success rate or prevent complications, or advanced imaging techniques that allow precise prognosis or expansion of treatment populations, should be evaluated. On the other hand, capturing LVO patients who were not able to undergo EVT may reveal the gap between clinical trials and real-world practice in the Asia-Pacific. In this multicenter prospective collaboration across the Asian-Pacific, the investigators aim to evaluate the determinants of effective EVT in the real-world setting.

There is very little data related to the natural history of disease from covert HE (MHE and grade 1 HE) to overt HE (grades II, III and IV) in ACLF, with implications on long-term neurological recovery after an episode of overt HE. The evolution and pathogenesis of HE is well described in ALF and cirrhosis, but the dynamic changes in HE in ACLF in response to therapy such as ammonia reduction measures, antibiotics to target sepsis and inflammation, measures to alter dysbiosis such as probiotics or fecal microbiota transplant, and measures to target immune dysfunction such as steroids in alcohol-associated hepatitis. The central role of ammonia in the pathogenesis of HE in ACLF has been challenged by recent data. The approach to HE in ACLF has now refocused on systemic and neuro-inflammation, gut dysbiosis, immune dysregulation, and multi-omics approach. Most importantly, the modulation of the metabolome in response to therapy and interventions, and the use of sedatives, paralytic agents, antibiotics etc. in ACLF with HE in a real-world setting has not been reported.