Active clinical trials for "Psychotic Disorders"

Current Canadian Clinical Practice guidelines emphasize the need for effective psychosocial adjuncts to pharmacotherapy for schizophrenia (Canadian Psychiatric Association 2005). This randomized control trial seeks to contribute to the body of evidence supporting psychosocial treatments by assessing the effectiveness of metacognitive training (MCT) and cognitive remediation (CR) at treating the persistent positive and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. MCT is a therapy designed to improve patient awareness and insight into the cognitive biases that are frequently seen in schizophrenia; it has been associated with decreased psychopathology (specifically decreased positive symptoms) and improved psychosocial function. CR is a therapy designed to improve performance in a variety of neurocognitive functions such as attention, memory, and executive functioning; it has been associated with improved cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Both MCT and CR will be compared to treatment as usual (TAU) as done previously (Kumar er al., 2010; Moritz et al., 2011). Hypotheses: MCT will produce greater change in delusions (severity and conviction) than CR and TAU. CR and MCT will produce greater change in social/everyday functioning than TAU. CR will produce greater improvement in basic attention and memory measures relative to MCT and TAU. MCT will produce greater reduction on tasks measuring targeted reasoning biases relative to CR and TAU. CR will increase efficiency of functional networks on a working memory task relative to MCT and TAU. MCT will lead to a greater decrease in the neural response to evidence matches relative to CR and TAU.

The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of Raloxifene 120mg in men with schizophrenia. This trial will adopt a 12 week randomised controlled model. Hypotheses 1: That the men receiving adjunctive selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM) will have a significantly greater reduction in psychosis symptoms over the course of the study than men receiving adjunctive placebo. Hypotheses 2: That the men receiving adjunctive SERM will have a significantly greater improvement in cognitive function than men receiving adjunctive placebo

The objective of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of raloxifene compared to placebo, as add-on to anti-psychotics in the treatment of post menopausal patients with schizophrenia.

Studies have shown that people with certain disorders have an increased risk of developing a condition called Metabolic Syndrome (MS). In this study, the investigators want to learn more about MS among people staying in the hospital for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and also Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features (MDpsy). The investigators also want to learn more about a stress hormone called cortisol that is made in the body. Those who take part in this study will answer some questionnaires, be given some psychiatric interviews, and have some blood taken along with a urine sample. The investigators believe that patients in the hospital with MDpsy will have higher baseline rates of MS factors, cortisol levels, dexamethasone non-suppression, and insulin resistance, compared with MDD alone.

This is a double blind randomized investigation of donepezil for patients suffering from schizophrenia, undergoing ECT. Patients will be randomized to receive either donezepil or plasebo, in order to gauge whether donezepil has a protective effect on memory disfunction, while patients are treated with ECT. Several parameters will be invistigated at baseline: general psychopathological measures, memory function scales, side effects scales. The same measurements will be taken throughout the trial and one month after ending the ECT.

The following study addresses the hypothesis that cognitive-behavioral interventions will be effective in reducing positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia under the conditions of the German health care system. It is also hypothesized that interventions designed to reduce delusions will reduce cognitive biases and dysfunctional self-concepts.

The objective of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of Estradiol patch compared to placebo, as add-on to anti-psychotics in the treatment of women 38 and older with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or schizophreniform disorder.

Participants with recent onset psychosis (ROP) experience delusions, hallucinations, and impairment in social, cognitive and emotional functioning. Although symptoms often improve following pharmacological intervention, the marked cognitive deficits, that often precede the onset of symptoms, continue to persist despite current treatment methods. Computerized neurocognitive interventions (NCI) are a promising therapeutic approach in participants with chronic schizophrenia and individuals at risk for psychosis. Specifically, focus has shifted to social cognitive training (SCT) as treating social cognition have been shown to provide improvements not only in general cognitive deficits but is also related to improvements in functional outcome (occupational and social). NCIs include non-invasive computerized tasks that are done on a tablet. This intervention can be conducted in a clinical setting, as well as out of the comfort of one's home. Additionally, research has shown that NCIs have the potential to elicit neuroplastic effects on the brain. The purpose of this study is to explore the efficacy of a 10-hour SCT in improving the primary outcome measure, global cognition, and secondary outcome measure, global functioning, in ROP participants. It is hypothesized that participants receiving the intervention will show gains in global cognition, as well as the subdomains of social cognition, processing speed, and working memory. Additionally, participants undergoing active intervention are expected to show gains in functional connectivity primarily between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala and other brain areas, that are engaged in social cognition. Furthermore, machine learning approach will be used(support vector classification) to investigate how the decision scores of the resting state classifier, indicating health vs. disease proneness, change in response to the training. In this randomized controlled trial, participants with a ROP receive a 4-6-week treatment with 10 hours of SCT, with 30-minute sessions 4-5 times per week or treatment as usual (TAU) control condition. Baseline and follow-up (6 weeks after the baseline assessment) assessments include clinical diagnostic and symptom assessment, standard neuropsychological testing, and structural and functional imaging. The already recruited part of the ROP sample counts 27 participants in SCT and 27 in the TAU arm. The power analysis recommends to recruit at least 6 more participants in both study arms. For the purpose of machine learning part of the analysis an independent psychosis (ROP)-healthy population (HC) classifier will be used, which takes the data from the naturalistic multi-center european study, Personalized Prognostic Tools for Early Psychosis Management, in order to be able to track the decision scores of the intervention SCT sample without risk of overfitting.

Cognitive enhancement is a primary goal in treating individuals with schizophrenia. Cognitive deficits are already present at the first break of the illness, seem to remain stable during early phases and noticeably influence daily functioning. Differences among antipsychotics in terms of cognitive effectiveness have turned out to be a topic of increasing research interest. The initially postulated superior neurocognitive effectiveness of second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) compared to first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) is currently under debate. Long-term studies would be of great value to evaluate the differential benefits exerted by antipsychotic drugs on cognitive performance. The aim of this study is to investigate the cognitive effects of aripiprazole and risperidone in first-episode psychosis at 3 years.

The Irish Omega-3 study is a clinical trial designed to investigate the potential of Omega-3 fatty acids in the reduction of risk of psychosis. The study is being coordinated by the HRB Clinical Research Facility at University College Cork. The Principal Investigator is Dr Maeve Rooney, Consultant Psychiatrist in the Mercy University Hospital, Cork. The study will be carried out in collaboration with the HRB Clinical Research Facility in Dublin in prior to rolling out to other centres around Ireland. The Study is funded by Stanley Medical Research Institute, a non-profit organization supporting research on the causes of, and treatments for, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It is the largest provider of funding for research in serious mental illness outside of the U.S. government.