Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

The aim of this study is to collect pilot data to compare the effectiveness of treatment with Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) for reduction in body weight in 40 obese outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in an open-label pilot trial. The investigators also plan to test the feasibility of utilizing ALA as a weight loss agent for obese outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in terms of tolerability, schizophrenia symptoms, cognition and side effects. We have run a total of 12 non-diabetic participants and are now recruiting diabetic patients in hopes of comparing the two groups.

Patients with schizophrenia have problems in thinking, known as cognitive dysfunction. This includes many types of cognitive dysfunction, such as in attention, memory and language. These problems may explain why patients with schizophrenia think and act in unusual ways, and often have problems managing aspects of their lives that healthy adults take for granted. Unfortunately, the biochemical aspects of these dysfunctions are presently unknown, and it is not clear whether current psychiatric medications can improve these functions. A recent FDA-approved medication that may improve this function is modafinil. Studies in animals and healthy adults show that this medication can improve many of these cognitive functions. We plan to study the effects of modafinil on these cognitive processes, by giving various doses of this medication to patients before they perform tasks of these cognitive processes. We predict that when patients receive modafinil, they will perform better on a cognitive test, and that these benefits will depend on the dose given.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of oral ziprasidone in children and teens with psychotic disorders

The aim of the proposed pilot study is to find out whether varenicline (ChantixTM) treatment decreases alcohol use and smoking in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Varenicline may also improve cognition (memory and concentration) and negative symptoms (e.g. poor attention, poverty of speech, apathy, affective flattening, anhedonia) in patients with schizophrenia and comorbid nicotine and alcohol dependence.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether MK-8435 (Org 25935) is more effective than placebo in improving negative symptoms in participants with schizophrenia who are concurrently treated with a stable dose of a second generation antipsychotic.

This study attempts to observe the efficacy (response time) and safety of the second-generation antipsychotic agent-quetiapine versus the first-generation antipsychotic agent-haloperidol, in treating acute schizophrenia episode and to evaluate the effect of the effectiveness of acute schizophrenia episode on long-term tolerability.

The purpose of the study was an Open Label Extension to the recurrence prevention study to evaluate long-term safety and tolerability of paliperidone ER in subjects with schizophrenia.

The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate the bioequivalence, with respect to risperidone and its active moiety, of a single oral dose of risperidone given as a 4 mg orally-disintegrating tablet and as a 4 mg conventional RISPERDAL tablet. In addition, their tolerability and safety will be documented.

There is a strong association between smoking and schizophrenia with prevalence rates ranging from 74% to 90%, versus a national average of 30% in nonschizophrenic individuals. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the relationship between high smoking rates and schizophrenia, mostly relating to self-medication primarily for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Smoking cessation rates among schizophrenic patients are considerably lower than for other psychiatric disorders. The negative health effects of smoking increase the morbidity and mortality in schizophrenic patients. Currently, the efficacy of bupropion HCl in the treatment of smoking by schizophrenic subjects is inconclusive, and there have not been any published studies of the efficacy of varenicline in schizophrenic subjects. As varenicline appears to be a promising treatment in non-psychiatric patients, it would be useful to expand these studies to examine its effects in schizophrenic patients. Identifying effective and safe means of smoking cessation for this vulnerable population has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality among individuals with schizophrenia.

Ziprasidone is recommended to be dosed twice daily for the treatment of schizophrenia, based on peripheral pharmacokinetics and a knowledge of its half life in plasma level (5-10 hours). However, the plasma kinetics do not always mirror what occurs in the brain. Antipsychotics with a high-affinity at D2 receptors attach for a relatively long time to their binding sites even after plasma levels declined. Based on this observation, another antipsychotic with a similar high-affinity at D2 receptors, ziprasidone, would also be expected to keep a sufficiently high D2 receptor occupancy even 24 hours after the last dose. Given >60% D2 occupancy is required to maximize chance of therapeutic efficacy, it would be valuable to assess the D2 receptor occupancy 24 hours postdose to predict the therapeutic effects of once-daily regimen. In this study, we will measure D2 receptor occupancy 6, 12, and 24 hours after the last dose of ziprasidone in patients with schizophrenia. The hypotheses are as follows: First, based on the known affinity of ziprasidone, the dopamine D2 occupancy 24 hours after the last administered dose of 80 mg will be >60%. Second, the difference in dopamine D2 occupancy between scan at 6 hours and 24 hours will be less than 15%. Third, the difference in dopamine D2 occupancy between scan at 12 hours and 24 hours will be less than 10%. Fourth, ED50 24 hours post dose will be higher that those 6 and 12 hours postdose.