Active clinical trials for "Psychotic Disorders"

Patients experiencing a first episode of psychosis may have brain cell damage due to a chemical process called oxidation. This study will compare patients with psychosis to healthy volunteers to determine if there are differences in their blood that reflect oxidative brain cell damage.

The aim of the project is to conduct a feasibility study of the mobile phone application "TechCare" for individuals with psychosis in the North West of England.

The purpose of this study is to determine if candidate polymorphisms in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) are predictive of psychosis disorder severity, symptomology, and resolution in patients at BCPP. A secondary objective will be to form a biorepository of blood and saliva samples from patients at BCPP so that further genetic, proteonomic and pharmacogenomic studies may be done to gain insight into the genetic basis of differences in psychosis disorder presentation and manifestation, and differences in response to antipsychotic drug treatment.

Considering the complex pathological mechanism and the poor treatment outcomes of schizophrenia, early detection and intervention gradually become the key work for the foundational and clinical research in schizophrenia. Ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHP) is defined as individuals at the prodromal stage of schizophrenia. Early intervention in individual at UHP can effectively delay or even prevent the development of the illness. Long-term longitudinal studies suggested that there are clinical outcomes in people at UHP. Nearly 1/3 of individuals at UHP may be naturally relieved without any intervention, about 1/3 of individuals at UHP will remain at the prodromal stage of schizophrenia, and only 1/3 individuals at UHP will eventually develop schizophrenia. In this regard, it will cause adverse effects on false positive individuals if they accept clinical intervention. Unfortunately, it is difficult to accurately predict which individuals at UHP will make a transition to frank illness. To solve this issue, we explore the association between baseline brain structural and functional networks, methylation modifications, gene expression, neurocognitive function and the clinical outcomes of UHP individuals, and to identify the potential biological and clinical predictors for the long-term outcomes in the individuals at UHP. In addition, we also detect the changes of brain structure and function, methylation status and gene expression in individuals at UHP during follow-up, and further to investigate the etiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

The current study will improve knowledge on the effectiveness and safety of the use of antipsychotics at the prodromal phase and on factors influencing the outcome, and will eventually facilitate optimisation of individualised interventions for psychosis prevention and treatment.

The goal of our research is to check the levels of D-Serine, Glycine, and other Glutamatergic amino acids, in patients with First Psychotic Episode (FPE). These patients are in the early stage of the disease, treated with neuroleptics for short periods of time, and are usually hospitalized for the first time. The hypothesis of the research is that we will find low levels of Glycine and D-Serine in these patients. Following an Anti-psychotic treatment we will expect these levels to return to the norm, and that this correction will be accompanied by a reduction of positive and negative symptoms. In addition, we will check the D-Serine and Glycine levels in the plasma of first degree relatives of the patients and a group of healthy subjects. The results of this study might support the hypothesis that the Glutamatergic system in involved in the pathology of Schizophrenia from it's early stages. In addition, we will check the levels of Oxytocin and Estrogen in the plasma of patients in FPE. Our hypothesis is that we will find low levels of Estrogen and High levels of Oxytocin in this group of patients. The results of the study might support the hypothesis that Estrogen and Oxytocin are involved in the pathology of Schizophrenia from it's early stages.

There is currently no clear involvement of families/caregivers in the care for postpartum mothers that develop postpartum psychosis. The lack of knowledge on causes of postpartum psychosis may influence the nature of perceived social support that mothers receive from caregivers. It is hoped that the provision of a culturally adapted version of family psychoeducation will bridge the knowledge gap and provide the much needed information. We therefore hypothesized that the involvement of a family member of a postpartum mother with a psychotic illness in a weekly session of family psychoeducation.

The first aim of this study is to test the effect of the case management on the evolution of therapeutic alliance in patients with first episode psychosis in comparison with traditional nursing. The second aim is to test the effect of case management on nurses' well-being in comparison with traditional nursing. The third objective aims to show if therapeutic alliance is associated with insight in patients and with clinical and demographic data.

The perception of music requires coordinated neural activities in distributed multi-functional centers across both hemispheres. The association between musical abilities and other general cognitive functions have been studied in several populations with inconsistent results. Schizophrenia is a major mental disorder that is strongly associated with cognitive deficits. These often appear before the onset of psychotic symptoms and persist throughout effective treatment of positive and negative symptoms. Like other disorders of psychosis, schizophrenia features general deficits in auditory memory and sensory processing. Recently, Sawada et al. (2014) and Wen et al. (2014) studied music abilities in Japanese and Chinese schizophrenic populations. They both used a standardized assessment for amusia called Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) and found marked impairments in perception of scale, contour, interval, rhythm, meter and memory. Both studies showed that deficits in music perception were associated with cognitive deficits and negative symptoms. In regards to positive symptoms, Wen et al., but not Sawada et al., found a significant association. The present clinical study will assess musical abilities using the MBEA in a Canadian population with and without refractory psychosis. It will explore associations between musical deficits, positive and negative psychiatric symptomology and cognition. The patient population will have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, affective disorder with psychosis or non substance-related psychosis who were referred to the British Columbia Psychosis Program (BCPP) due to inadequate or no response to at least two trials of antipsychotics. A focus on refractory psychosis may provide greater insights because these patients have relatively more pronounced psychiatric symptoms and cognitive deficits. It will also be valuable to administer the MBEA assessment on a Canadian population, because the test was originally intended for Western populations and its musical phrases were designed with Western tonalities.

The purpose of this study is to compare abdominal weight gain and fat distribution to changes in brain morphology in people taking antipsychotic medications.