Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

Previous research has suggested central nervous system inflammatory activity to be critically involved in disease development and progression in schizophrenia, with a complex interplay of inflammatory mechanisms leading to the development of brain abnormalities and medical symptoms related to schizophrenia. However, the mutual interactions of different inflammatory pathways and their relation to disease course have not been sufficiently studied. This study therefore aims to explore the interaction of neuroinflammatory mechanisms in patients with schizophrenia and to assess whether the inflammatory activity in schizophrenia is state-dependent and occurs mainly during psychotic episodes.

Aim was to detect EEG complexity in a specific group of patients to contribute to the discussion whether schizophrenia is associated with increased or decreased complexity. We included the EEG recordings of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. We hypothesized that chronic residual schizophrenia is characterized by decreased complexity in EEG.

The objective of this protocol is to develop items for a patient-reported outcome (PRO) measure to assess the patient's perspective and subjective experience of cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS).

Schizophrenia is a common disorder with a lifetime prevalence of about 1%.Genetic studies strongly suggest a genetic component to the inheritance of schizophrenia. Structural neuroimaging studies have provided consistent evidence for brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. The timing of brain abnormalities in schizophrenia has not been determined yet. The investigators hypothesize that brain structural changes can be detected in neonatal life. The investigators hypothesize that offspring of schizophrenic patients will have higher rates of brain structural changes in the neonatal period. The investigators propose to study early development of fetuses in offspring of patients with schizophrenia. The study is a multi-center prospective trial.

This pilot study hypothesizes that diagnosed and undiagnosed prevalence of diabetes mellitus may differ across antipsychotioc medications in a community mental health center. The study further hypothesizes that control of diabetes among diagnosed cases may be suboptimal.

This preliminary study aims to investigate the mechanism of higher rates of type 2 diabetes mellitus in patients with schizophrenia. As part of the study, we collect neuroendocrine-immune data on patients with first episode, treatment naive psychosis, patients with newly diagnosed schizophrenia and normal healthy controls. Regardless the treatment status, we collect the same neuroendocrine-immune data on the participants after 2 months.

Current diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia are based on marked positive and negative symptoms. This definition may impede the exploration of basic phenomenological psychopathology or pathological mechanism of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was found to have neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and neuropsychological impairment. However, the existence of these basic pathological states may not manifest as clinical state of schizophrenia, and it is found in normal relatives of schizophrenia proband. The clinical state of this underlying pathology may include so-called latent or early, or pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia or schizotypal disorder. The manifestation of prominent neurotic symptom state may not only present as an psychopathological issue, but also induce misdiagnosis in clinical practice. This may interfere early diagnosis of schizophrenia and may delay the chance of early and appropriate treatment. Taking the fact of this disadvantaged conditions, this research is for exploration of clinical pathology and neuropsychological functions of latent or pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia. The strategy ia a natural follow-up study on the clinical cases obtained from the registration record of the medical charts of the National Taiwan University Hospital from 1970 to 1995. The natural follow-up results till study time (5 yrs to 30 yrs following period) will be explored. By using neurotic group (50 cases), latent schizophrenia group (50 cases) and schizotypal group (30 cases), the differences in clinical pathology, neuropsychological functions and family history of schizophrenia will be examined. There are 5 hypotheses to be tested: (1) Schizotaxia may exist as the manifestations of latent schizophrenia, schizotypal disorder and frank schizophrenia. The severity of pathology increased step by step; (2) The syndrome may change from the lower order to higher order to higher order, but not all of them changed to the higher order; (3) The clinical pathology of latent schizophrenia has both neurotic symptom as well as basic symptoms of schizophrenia; (4) There is the same kind of neuropsychological impairment of schizophrenia in the group of latent schizophrenia, and (5) The prevalence of schizophrenia in the first degree relatives of latent schizophrenia is higher than that of the general population. Finally, this study results will help the establishment of valid screening and/or diagnostic method (criteria) of latent schizophrenia for clinical and research usage.

Schizophrenia exacts a high toll on the lives of patients and their families and constitutes a major health care cost. VISN 5 has placed special emphasis on improving care for veterans with severe mental disorders, an effort recently recognized by the VA as a Program of Excellence in the Care of Seriously Mentally Ill Veterans.

This study will allow researchers to use various types of tests to evaluate cognitive and sensory functions. These tests, referred to as "batteries" will evaluate attention, executive functions, general intellectual functioning, language, memory, motor functions, orientation, personality, selected sensory and perceptual functions, vigilance (alertness), and visual-spatial functions. Children and adult patient will receive different test batteries. The goals of this research study are to; Create descriptions based on the performance of each patient on the test batteries. Then use this information to relate patient behavior to their neurophysiological, neuroradiological, and biochemical descriptions. Define subgroups of patients based on their neurobehavior in order to decrease the variability of psychiatric diagnoses, treatments, and prognoses.

In the case of psychotic disorders such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, attention dysfunction contribute, according to the theories of neuroscience, the development of mood disorders following disturbances in the interaction-care emotion. In this context, the general objective of this research project is to refine our understanding of the similarities and distinctions between bipolar and schizophrenic patients in the basic emotional information processing. Specifically, these are: 1) to better understand what level of basic emotional information processing both conditions differ or are comparable and in what sense and 2) estimate, in both pathologies, the specific influence of the nature of the task of processing emotional information. To answer these questions, the investigators have developed a protocol to specifically target different information processing channels playing on the nature of the spatial frequency content of emotional natural scenes. To estimate in both pathologies, the specific influence of the nature of the task on emotional processing, 3 types of tasks are proposed: 1) a simple task perception and 2) -3) two tasks whose categorization one focused on the emotional feelings of the individual and the other on the tendency to action. Both tasks categorization should involve more specifically the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (CPFVM) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) respectively. All patient data will be compared with data from healthy control participants.