Active clinical trials for "Psychotic Disorders"

The overall goal of this study is to determine the efficacy and tolerability of three atypical antipsychotic medications (risperidone, olanzapine, and quetiapine) in the treatment of adolescents with psychosis. It is hypothesized that the three medications will be equally effective in reducing the symptoms of psychosis.

The purpose of the study is to show that risperidone (an antipsychotic medication) combined with lorazepam (an anti-anxiety medication) is more effective than conventional therapy administered by intramuscular injection for emergency treatment of patients with schizophrenia.

The primary purpose of the study is to show that treatment with an injectable formulation of risperidone is not less effective than and has a similar safety profile to risperidone tablets in patients with chronic schizophrenia.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness, safety and tolerability of risperidone long-acting injection (LAI) versus oral antipsychotics in participants with recent onset psychosis (abnormal thinking and/or hallucinations).

A primary hypothesis to be explored here is that, given its pharmacodynamic profile and hypothesized mechanisms associated with schizophrenia, escitalopram will, in comparison to placebo, be effective when added to risperidone or olanzapine treated group in reducing the severity of resistant symptoms, particularly existing subsyndromal anxiety and depression.

The purpose of this study is to assess and compare how risperidone and olanzapine, two antipsychotic medications, affect the regulation of glucose (sugar) in the body.

It has been suggested that patients with schizophrenia smoke in order to produce amelioration of dysfunctional dopaminergic pathways allowing them to experience pleasure and satisfaction and overcome anhedonia. No studies have assessed the effects of nicotine withdrawal on reward responsivity in patients with schizophrenia. The investigators believe that an understanding of this is crucial if improved treatments for nicotine dependence are to be developed for this patient population. If this group already has deficits in reward responsivity as a symptom of the disease then they may be particularly prone to the effects of nicotine withdrawal on reward systems. Smoking cessation may lead to a further decrease in their responsivity to pleasurable stimuli and worsening anhedonia. Treatments for smoking cessation may need to ameliorate any increased deficits if they are likely to be effective in patients with schizophrenia.

The objective of this study is to determine the effect of various mood stabilizers (MS) on the insulin resistance syndrome (IRS; also called the metabolic syndrome) alone and in patients treated with antipsychotic drugs (APDs). Patients will be switched from their current antipsychotic medication to aripiprazole (Abilify) or ziprasidone (Geodon) (unless clinically contraindicated) for comparison with metabolic levels during treatment with the former medication. The metabolic syndrome is an empirical concept based on extensive evidence that a constellation of 5 metabolic abnormalities, e.g. increased cholesterol, hypertension, low HDL, taken together, predict marked increases in the risk of CVD, stroke and some types of cancer.

This study evaluates the safety and tolerability of Asenapine in elderly patients with psychosis.

Ketamine, an FDA approved anesthetic agent, is becoming the sedative/analgesic of choice for emergency sedation in children because it causes deep sedation with minimal respiratory depression in comparison to other available agents. However, emergence reactions are an important adverse effect of ketamine, characterized by transient changes in cognitive function, dissociation and mild schizophrenia-like symptoms. These cognitive and behavioral effects are dose-dependently induced by ketamine and other antagonists of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor. NMDA receptor hypofunction can disinhibit excitatory (cholinergic/glutamatergic) projections in key areas of the brain, and this has been proposed to explain key features of schizophrenia. Several treatments that block excessive excitatory transmitter release have also been shown to prevent cognitive and behavioral effects of ketamine-induced NMDA receptor hypofunction in humans. Alpha-2 adrenergic agonists, which can presynaptically inhibit acetylcholine release, can prevent mild ketamine-induced behavioral and cognitive symptoms in healthy human adults. However, this prevention strategy has not been evaluated in children. Children currently receive clinically-indicated treatment with the NMDA antagonist, ketamine, and this age group is an important target for pharmacological strategies aimed at the prevention of schizophrenia. This application proposes a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial to test the safety and effectiveness of dexmedetomidine, an FDA approved alpha-2 adrenergic agonist, in preventing ketamine-induced mental symptoms in children. Planned primary analyses will evaluate effects of the hypothesized prevention treatment on clinical and cognitive variables using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The proposed experiments are relevant to future prevention trials for individuals at risk for schizophrenia, and to preventing adverse effects of NMDA antagonist anesthetic agents (ketamine, nitrous oxide).