Active clinical trials for "Mental Disorders"

This study will examine the role of a brain chemical called norepinephrine in thinking, decision-making, and emotional processing. After norepinephrine is released from a brain cell, it binds to another brain cell's receptor. Some of the receptors it binds to are called alpha-2 adrenergic receptors. This study will use medicines called yohimbine and guanfacine to look at the function of norepinephrine in the brain when it binds to the alpha-2 adrenergic receptors. Yohimbine increases norepinephrine's function and guanfacine decreases its function. Healthy volunteers between 20 and 50 years of age who do not have heart disease, high blood pressure, psychiatric illness, or other serious medical conditions and who are not allergic to lactose may be eligible for this study. Candidates are screened with a medical and psychiatric history, physical examination, neuropsychological testing, blood and urine tests and electrocardiogram. Women are screened with a urine pregnancy test. Participants are given a pill of yohimbine, guanfacine, or placebo and undergo the following tests and procedures: Blood pressure and heart rate measurements: Blood pressure and heart rate are measured before the medication is taken and several times after. Blood draws: Blood is drawn before the medicine is taken and 90 minutes after to measure levels of norepinephrine and the hormone cortisol. Neurocognitive testing: Participants do neurocognitive tasks on the computer for up to 90 minutes. The tasks involve looking at pictures or words on a screen and responding according to instructions given. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): Patients may undergo neurocognitive testing MRIs. This test uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to show changes in brain activity. The subject lies on a table that slides into a narrow cylinder (the MRI scanner). Images of the brain are obtained while the subject performs the computer tasks.

The purpose of this study is to collect and compare information regarding the treatment and outcome of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease who are receiving either drug or nondrug treatment. Information will be collected from patients and their primary caregivers.

Schizophrenia is one of society's most costly medical conditions and the most severe among psychiatric disorders. One of the most important and exciting new concepts in psychiatry is that detection and intervention very early in the course of schizophrenia offers what may be the field's best practical hope for realizing substantive improvements in the outcome of schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Thus, we propose a five year program that focuses on three interconnected major research streams: (1) an evaluation of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a model-driven psychological intervention in preventing or delaying the onset of a psychotic illness; (2) a qualitative study of the pathways to mental health at this time of very high risk; and (3) an exploration of the burden to the healthcare and informal caregiver systems associated with this high risk population.

Digital medicine systems (DMS) have been designed to assist individuals with the management of their daily health, wellness, and medication use. The DMS is being developed as a healthcare management tool to precisely measure medication adherence and to potentially enhance adherence.

This study will investigate the occurrence of psychosis-spectrum disorders among youth in the Juvenile Justice System and track mental health referrals for these youth in Phase 1, a standard care condition. Then, in Phase 2, an enhanced referral and linkage to care model will be employed, with the aim of bolstering motivation for and engagement in mental health treatment. It is hypothesized that the enhanced referral protocol will promote completion of mental health care referrals.

Practicing mindfulness is popular and well-accepted for its benefits in improving mental and physical health. In particular, its benefits in promoting resilience to stress and well-being have been shown in studies involving different psychiatric conditions, as well as preventing relapse in patients with depressive disorders. However, its role in relapse prevention among patients with psychosis has not been tested. The investigators therefore propose a multi-site, single-blind, 12-month randomized controlled trial in Hong Kong to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness intervention in prevention of relapse among 152 remitted psychosis patients.

Social impairment is one of the core symptoms in first episode psychosis (FEP). Despite negative symptoms and social cognition impairment found in patient suffering from FEP, clinicians occasionally identified socially inappropriate behaviours (SIB) after onset and stabilization of psychotic disorder. It is also uncommon that some caregivers often complain about their relatives with psychosis of embarrassing and immature behaviour. SIB mainly observed in form of excessive emotional expression, childish behaviour and regressive behaviour. There is limited research focusing on this inadequate behavioural pattern in patient with first episode psychosis recently. It was worth investigating this phenomenon and gain more understanding in other comorbidity symptoms and caregiving distress arisen from this. Psychometric tests and validated assessment tools are well-developed for measuring positive symptoms, negative symptoms, neurocognitive deficits and social cognition impairment in schizophrenic patients but none of them is useful specifically for assessing SIB, and not to mention, from carer's perspective. It could be an obstacle for clinicians to investigate the phenomena of the prevalence and the impact on family in real life without any validated assessment tools or questionnaires. This qualitative study aims to identify the SIB in patients with FEP and to explore the caregiving experience and distress. Hopefully, this study may help designing a questionnaire for future exploration on this topic.

It's well established in the literature that emotional events are more likely to be remembered than neutral events. Although this Emotional Enhancement of Memory (EEM) has been well demonstrated in the adult literature, little is known about EEM for typically developing children and children with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS). In this study, two investigations will be conducted concomitantly: one of EEM in typically developing children and the other of EEM in children with WBS. For this purpose, three behavioral experiments will be established to investigate EEM in this two populations, with the first experiment also including electroencephalography measures. Performances of typically developing children will be compared to young adults, and performances of children with WBS will be compared to control children matched for mental age. Finally, this study aims to bring new knowledge about the interactions between emotion and memory in children, and to better understand cognitive functioning in children with WBS.

Chronic hepatitis HCV-related is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in Italy. Patients with chronic hepatitis C present a prevalence of depressive disorders higher than that of the general population; moreover, it has been repeatedly demonstrated the presence of cognitive deficits and poor quality of life. Chronic hepatitis C therapy was based on the combined use of pegylated alpha-interferons (PEG-INF), and ribavirin. Recently, new therapeutic protocols have been introduced, and while some antiviral drugs, including the first-generation ones, were used only in combination with PEG-IFN and ribavirin, the second and third generation antiviral drugs protocols are interferon-free. However, because of the high cost, the access to interferon-free protocols is only for patients with advanced fibrous stages, or with concomitant extra-hepatic HCV-related diseases, or for transplanted patients. Many side effects, such as flu-like symptoms, and psychiatric symptoms (depression, anxiety, irritability, insomnia) are common during antiviral therapy with IFN. However, in patients with chronic hepatitis C, a high lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and brief recurrent depression have been observed, irrespective of IFN treatment and the use of alcohol and narcotics; such associations between mood and anxiety disorders and chronic hepatitis C may reflect a high prevalence of bipolar spectrum disorders. The presence of severe psychopathological symptoms requires the reduction of posology and causes high rates of discontinuation of antiviral therapy. This project represents an innovative psychiatric and neuropsychological screening program for patients with chronic hepatitis C, eligible for antiviral therapy. Primary objectives: to verify the medium-term impact of new antiviral therapies on quality of life, psychological well-being and cognitive function in subjects with chronic hepatitis C; to verify the predictability of specific psychopathological components and specific determinants on compliance with new antiviral therapies. Main secondary objectives: to verify the evidence of association between various psychiatric disorders and cognitive deficits and chronic hepatitis C; to evaluate the relative weight of psychopathological and/or cognitive disorders on the efficacy of antiviral therapy and on quality of life.

This study aims to estimate the effect of a 3-month High Intensity Interval Training on antipsychotic-induced weight gain in patients with a first episode of psychosis, as well as to determine whether these effects are maintained 9 months after the intervention has ended.