Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

In order to identify psychological stress in children and adolescents of mentally ill parents as early as possible, a special intervention program (CHIMPs = Children of mentally ill parents) was developed. The study at hand will implement this intervention program at five sites in Germany and will further evaluate its effectiveness. The CHIMPs intervention is assumed to reduce children's psychopathology and enhance their health related quality of life.

Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain. Studies with rodents indicate that levels of KYNA can impact levels of the neurotransmitters glutamate and dopamine. One way to reliably increase KYNA levels is by ingesting the amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan is a normal part of the human diet. Tryptophan gets metabolized/changed to other chemicals in the body- including KYNA. By giving people 6 grams of tryptophan, the investigators will be able to increase the KYNA level in a controlled way. The investigators will then be able to study the effects of KYNA on neurotransmitters by using cognitive tests and magnetic resonance imaging techniques (measuring brain activity and brain chemistry using the MRI magnet). They will test people using tryptophan and also using a placebo to look for differences. The investigators will test healthy controls and people with schizophrenia to look for differences.

Schizophrenia is marked by problems in attention, memory and problem solving. These deficits predict long-term functional outcome such as the ability to live independently and maintain employment, but they are not ameliorated by currently available medications. Cognitive training improves these functions to some degree, but this approach is time- and resource-intensive. The current project aims at enhancing and accelerating the benefits that people with schizophrenia derive from cognitive training by administering nicotine during some of the training sessions. This would provide the proof of principle for a type of treatment intervention to improve cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. The current project aims at determining whether the intermittent presence of nicotine during cognitive training exercises in people with schizophrenia will shorten the training period necessary to induce significant and clinically relevant improvement and enhance the improvement seen after a training period of specified length. Hypothesis 1a: Nicotine administration during training will increase the size of all measured effects of the training intervention, and will accelerate the time course of performance enhancement on the MCCB and training exercise progression parameters. Hypothesis 1b: The larger training effects in the Nicotine Group will persist beyond the end of the intervention. Hypothesis 2a: Within-session progress on the training exercises will be larger in the presence of nicotine than in the presence of placebo. Hypothesis 2b: These acute nicotine-induced performance elevations will persist beyond the presence of nicotine through subsequent non-drug training sessions, giving evidence of an acute facilitation of learning processes.

To compare and evaluate the oral bioavailability of Asenapine Sublingual Tablets, 10 mg manufactured by AMNEAL PHARMACEUTICALS, USA with SAPHRIS® (asenapine) sublingual tablets, 10 mg.

The proposed pilot study will compare minocycline augmentation with clozapine in individuals with high vs low inflammation as measured by CRP. Investigators hypothesize that minocycline will be well tolerated and will result in an improvement in the symptoms of schizophrenia, cognition, as well as improve the quality of life for patients preferentially in patients with high CRPs. Investigators plan to use a variety of different scales to measure improvement in the varying symptoms of schizophrenia as well as cognitive function, which will be administered to patients at three week intervals for a total study time of twelve weeks. Investigators hypothesize that minocycline could prove to be an effective, well tolerated, and inexpensive medication for treatment resistant patients with schizophrenia whom have particular difficulties with social interactions, obtaining and maintaining employment, and overall quality of life. Furthermore, investigators hypothesize that the data obtained in this study will contribute to the ongoing exploration of the role of inflammation in the brain of patients with schizophrenia and help understand and target the role of various inflammatory markers in the pathophysiology and treatment of treatment resistant schizophrenia.

This study is designed to evaluate the effects of a single dose of SEP-363856 in healthy male and female volunteers with high or low schizotype characteristics.

This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, sequential cohort, ascending oral dose study of the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of EVP-6308 administered for 14 days in subjects with schizophrenia who are on a stable anti-psychotic regimen.

The rate of type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is at least 2-3 times higher in persons with psychotic illnesses than in the general population. Life expectancy of individuals with psychosis is also 20-25 years less than the general population, primarily due to premature onset of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Despite the high risk for T2DM and CVD, psychotic illness has been an exclusion criterion in all large-scale studies of diabetes prevention and management. We propose a 3-year randomized controlled trial examining the effectiveness of a lifestyle intervention (LI) aimed at reducing caloric intake and increasing physical activity in overweight or obese individuals (N=150) suffering from both a psychotic illness and T2DM. Weight and glycemic control will be the primary outcome variables. It is hypothesized that a significant weight reduction and improvement in glycemic control will be found in those who receive the LI relative to those who do not.

This is a Phase II, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over POC study of stable patients with Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective disorder. The primary objective of this study is to test the efficacy of treatment with one of two does of a glycine transporter inhibitor (GlyT1I) combined with cognitive remediation to enhavce cognitive function. Subjects will be randomized to one of two doses of the glycine transporter inhibitor (GlyT1I) and placebo twice daily in addition to their antipsychotic medication for 2 treatment periods, each lasting a minimum of 5 weeks. Treatment periods will be separated by a washout period lasting approximately 3 weeks.

This study is designed to look at the effects of naltrexone on weight loss in individuals treated with antipsychotic medications. Naltrexone is an FDA approved medication for the management of alcohol dependence and drug dependence, but has not been fully evaluated for its effect on weight loss in individuals with severe mental illness (i.e. schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder etc.) The purpose of this study is to find out how effective two different doses of oral naltrexone is on reducing body weight when compared to placebo (an inactive substance or "sugar pill").