Active clinical trials for "Depressive Disorder, Major"

This feasibility study investigates effects of EEG-based low frequency, low emission magnetic cortical stimulation in comparison to a sham treatment in subjects with moderate to severe depressive disorder.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of cariprazine as an adjunctive treatment to antidepressant therapy (ADT) in patients with MDD

The objectives of this study were to examine the cardiovascular sensitivity to oral tyramine after establishment of steady state with CX157 Modified Release (MR) Tablets, 125 mg administered twice per day (BID) in healthy volunteers compared to placebo; and to investigate the general safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic profile of CX157 tablets at steady state compared to placebo.

The purpose of this pilot study is to determine if taking a low dose of naltrexone in addition to an antidepressant medication can help treat relapse or recurrence in people with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved naltrexone for the treatment of alcohol dependence and opioid dependence, but the FDA has not approved naltrexone to treat depression. The investigators hypothesize that patients with breakthrough depression on an antidepressant regimen containing a pro-dopaminergic agent assigned to treatment with low dose naltrexone will demonstrate higher rates of response compared to those patients taking placebo.

Depression is a serious mental health problem that affects millions. Depression is usually treated using drugs and/or psychotherapy, but neither approach is successful for everyone, and some people do not respond to either. Therefore it is crucial that we continue to seek new methods for treating depression, and develop enhancements to existing treatments. In recent years, trials have documented improvements in depressive symptoms using noninvasive brain stimulation techniques, such as transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS. Our aim in this research is to investigate the effects of brain stimulation combined with psychological therapy in depression, an area that remains largely unexplored. Specifically, stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region known to work inefficiently in depression, has been shown to result in an improvement of depressive symptoms, as well as in the patient's 'cognitive control' abilities. Because 'cognitive control' processes, such as concentrating and ignoring distracting thoughts, are engaged during psychological therapies for depression, we predict that DLPFC stimulation should improve how patients respond to psychological therapy. This study has considerable implications as it will potentially benefit a large number of patients for which current treatments are ineffective.

This project seeks to elucidate the mechanisms by which antidepressant medications have limited efficacy in Late Life Depression (LLD) in order to develop new treatment interventions for this prevalent and disabling illness. Investigators hypothesize that the presence of executive dysfunction (ED),which is common in depressed adults over 60, impairs the ability to form appropriate expectancies of improvement with antidepressant treatment. Greater expectancy has been shown to improve antidepressant treatment outcome and is hypothesized to be a primary mechanism of placebo effects. Moreover, white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are more prevalent in patients with LLD compared to healthy controls. It has been argued that WMH contribute to the pathogenesis of LLD with ED and decrease the efficacy of antidepressant medications by disrupting connections between prefrontal cortical (PFC) and subcortical structures. Vascular lesions to white matter tracts may also compromise the pathway by which expectancy-based placebo effects influence depressive symptoms. Expectancies reflect activation in PFC areas that may improve depressive symptoms by modulating the activity of subcortical regions subserving negative affective systems (i.e., amygdala) as well as those important in reward and hedonic capacity (nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum). Thus, LLD patients with ED and WMH may sustain a "double-hit" to their ability to experience placebo effects in antidepressant treatments: ED diminishes the ability to generate appropriate treatment expectancies, while WMH disrupt the physiologic pathways by which expectancies lead to improvement in depressive symptoms.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common psychiatric condition, mostly treated with antidepressant drugs, which are limited for issues such as refractoriness and adverse effects. In this context, the investigators investigate a non-pharmacological treatment known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). To prove that tDCS is similarly effective than antidepressants would have a tremendous impact in clinical psychiatry, since tDCS is virtually absent of adverse effects. Its ease of use, portability and low price are also interesting characteristics for using in primary and secondary health care. Thus, our aim is to compare tDCS against a fully dosed, effective antidepressant. The study will be a non-inferiority, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, three-arm trial comparing active tDCS/placebo pill, sham tDCS/escitalopram 20mg/day and sham tDCS/placebo pill. Our primary aim is to show that tDCS is not inferior to escitalopram 20mg/day with a noninferiority margin of at least 50% of the escitalopram-placebo effect.

Transcranial direct cranial stimulation (tDCS) is a novel technique based on the application of a weak electrical current over the scalp through two electrodes - the anode, which facilitates neuronal depolarization, and the cathode, which leads to neuronal hyper-polarization. Recently, several open-label and sham-controlled clinical trials applied daily tDCS sessions for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). Theoretically, tDCS displays depression improvement through anodal stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal, inducing excitability-enhancing effects over this area, which is hypoactive during the acute depressive episode. The present study is aimed at comparing two different tDCS protocols: (1) active anodic stimulation over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with cathode placed over an extra cephalic area; (2) active cathode placed over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with anode placed over an extra cephalic area.

This study is evaluating the effects of two brain training exercises on: memory, cognitive processing and depression symptoms.

Investigation of the efficacy and safety of a new potential treatment of Major depressive disorder (MDD) in paediatric participants (age 7 to 11 years).