Active clinical trials for "Bipolar Disorder"

The purpose of this study is to determine if galantamine augmentaion improves cognition in euthymic bipolar patients. In addition, the effect of galantamine on clinical measures of functioning and psychopathology will also be assessed.

This study investigates the neuroprotective properties of low-dose lithium in young individuals at ultra-high risk of developping a first psychotic episode. Fourty individuals having some symptoms of an emerging psychotic disorders (without meeting the threshold for a full-blown mental illness) will be treated with a low dose of lithium (about a third of the dose that is usually used to treat acute mania). We will assess the progression of the conditions of these individuals on a montly bases for a year. We will do behavioural, cognitive and imaging assessments prior start of the treatment, after three months and one year. We hope to demonstrate that low dose lithium will stop or even reverse the progression of disease. We expect that behavioral, cognitive and in vivo brain imaging parameters in those individuals treated with low dose lithium improve, compared to the monitoring group.

This is a study of addition of aripirazole to the treatment of bipolar depressed patients who are not better on the medications that they are currently receiving.

Serotonin (5-HT) is important in mood regulation and is believed to play a major role in the pathophysiology of major depression (MD). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are currently the most widely used drugs for the treatment of depression. Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) who are treated for depression with SSRIs might develop mania, which is believed to be triggered by antidepressant treatment. Rapid tryptophan depletion (RTD) has been shown to induce transient depressive symptoms in remitted depressed patients treated with SSRIs. In remitted manic patients treated with lithium, RTD does not seem to have clinical effects. However, RTD was not studied in acutely manic patients and could theoretically have antimanic properties. In this double blind randomized placebo controlled study RTD will be used as a tool to assess the role of 5-HT in mania and will be evaluated for its antimanic properties and potential use as augmentation to drug treatment in acute mania.

The purpose of this study is to look at the safety and effectiveness of aripiprazole (abilify) in children with bipolar disorder and to examine whether or not patients that respond to initial mood stabilization benefit from continued pharmacotherapy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of allopurinol as an augmentation agent for the prevention of mania in bipolar disorder patients with currently stable mood.

Patients with bipolar disorder are at increased risk of weight gain, which in turn, increases the risk for somatic disease and non-adherence to maintenance therapy. Therefore, interventions addressing weight gain are expedient for the management of this disorder. The investigators set out to evaluate the effects of a lifestyle intervention on body mass index, cardiovascular, glycemic and metabolic parameters in patients with bipolar disorder under mood stabilizing pharmacological treatment. 50 outpatients with bipolar disorder under mood stabilizing treatment participated in a randomized controlled trial (waiting control group N=24 and multimodal lifestyle intervention N=26). Each experimental group consisted of two cohorts. The intervention lasted five months and consisted of eleven group sessions and weekly fitness training. Body Mass Index (BMI), body weight as well as cardiovascular, glycemic and metabolic parameters were determined as baseline (March and September 2005) and after five (July 2005 and January 2006) and eleven months (January and July 2006).

The purpose of this study is to compare the efficacy of quetiapine fumarate monotherapy with quetiapine fumarate in combination with lithium in the treatment of a major depressive episode in patients with bipolar disorder.

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential pharmacokinetic (absorption, distribution and excretion of the drug by the body) interaction between, and the safety of, topiramate and risperidone administered in combination in patients with a history of either bipolar spectrum or schizoaffective (bipolar type) disorders as defined by DSM-IV criteria.

This treatment pilot study will investigate clinical efficacy and adverse effects of magnetic seizure therapy (MST) in patients currently experiencing a unipolar or bipolar depressive episode. The investigators will perform add-on tests to assess clinical and cognitive response to treatment. It is hypothesized that MST will have an antidepressant efficacy with a beneficial neurocognitive adverse effect profile.