Active clinical trials for "Bipolar Disorder"

To evaluate the feasibility, tolerability and efficacy of Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST) in elderly patients with a major depressive episode, who are randomly assigned to receive an acute course of MST or ECT. The investigators hypothesize: MST and ECT will have similar antidepressant efficacy MST will have less post-treatment amnesia than ECT as reflected in a primary measures of anterograde and retrograde amnesia following the acute treatment phase. At follow up, MST will show a lesser degree of persisting deficit in measures of retrograde amnesia than ECT.

Thirty subjects with a DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth version)diagnosis of BPD during a depressive or hypomanic episode will be divided in two groups according to age and time of illness. All patients will receive lithium (flexible therapeutic dose) for 6 weeks and improvement will be evaluated weekly using depression and mania rating scales; this study also objectives to identify state/trait markers and predictors of response.

The purpose of this study is to test whether ketamine and D-cycloserine can be safely and effectively used for the treatment of depression. The investigators hypothesize that ketamine will serve as a rapid acting and safe antidepressant in patients with bipolar depression, and furthermore, that D-cycloserine will serve as an effective therapy following ketamine treatment.

This trial investigate add-on treatment with 3 g NAC vs. placebo in 20 weeks in patients suffering from bipolar depression. The primary outcome is MADRS-score, and the secondary outcomes are other psychometric evaluations oxidative stress biomarkers in urine.

Determine the efficacy and tolerability of olanzapine for treatment of acute depression in patients with bipolar II or bipolar disorder NOS compared with lithium.

Cognitive remediation (CR) is a new psychological treatment, which aims to improve cognitive function and coping skills. Several studies have recently demonstrated that CR improves cognitive and occupational function in patients with schizophrenia and with depression (e.g. Wykes et al 2007, Elgamal et al 2007). However, it is unclear whether CR improves cognitive and socio-occupational function in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and, if so, what impact this might have on these people's abilities in terms of work, coping strategies, quality of life, and everyday safety. The aim of the present PhD study is to investigate if CR has beneficial effects on cognitive and socio-occupational function in patients with previous mania and depression who experience persistent cognitive difficulties. Such effects would suggest implementation of CR in future treatment of bipolar disorder in order to facilitate the patients' ability to cope with the responsibilities related to work and everyday life. The hypotheses of the present study are that CR (in comparison to standard treatment) will 1) improve verbal learning and recall; and 2) improve sustained attention, executive function and psychosocial function.

This project will attempt to enhance and augment the antidepressant efficacy of a commonly used antidepressant in poorly responding bipolar depressed patients.

This is an open-label continuation study designed to monitor the safety, tolerability and effectiveness of lurasidone in subjects who have completed participation in a lurasidone extension study (NCT00868959 and NCT01566162) and who may benefit from continued treatment with lurasidone.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is an increasingly accepted neurostimulation- based treatment for major depressive disorder. While there is a growing anecdotal database supporting its use in bipolar depression the investigators propose to collect open label efficacy and safety data in a small population of patients with clinically verified bipolar disorder.

EPO-T aims to investigate (i) whether short-term add-on treatment with erythropoietin (EPO) can reduce cognitive side-effects of ECT and (ii) whether such effects are long-lasting. Further, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) will be used to explore the neural underpinnings of such beneficial effects of EPO. Finally, the trial examines whether potential protective effects of EPO on cognition are accompanied by changes in markers of oxidative stress, inflammation, and neuroplasticity. It is hypothesized that EPO treatment will (i) counteract ECT-induced cognitive decline, accompanied by (ii) increased sub-regional hippocampal volume, (iii) greater memory-related hippocampal activation and reinforcement of dorsolateral prefrontal activity during memory encoding and working memory, and (iv) changes in peripheral markers of inflammation, oxidative stress and neuroplasticity. Furthermore, we hypothesize that add-on EPO-treatment will produce greater, more sustained mood improvement than ECT treatment alone.