Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

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 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 aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of assertive community treatment in Copenhagen in two regions compared with two regions where this treatment was not implemented. The effect on user satisfaction, use of bed days, social network, global assessment of functioning, substance misuse will be evaluated.

This PPG entitled "A Study on Etiological Factors of Schizophrenia" (SEFOS) focuses on searching for the separate etiological factors under the understanding that schizophrenia is a complex disorder. Multifactorial model has been most often proposed as the etiological model. Up to now, fragmented knowledge of etiological factors, including genetic factor and environmental insults were reported in literature, and a two-strike hypothesis has been proposed. This PPG of SEFOS formulates a dynamic etiological hypothesis of schizophrenia. Specific, however heterogeneous, genes are hypothesized to be located in chromosome 1q, 6P, 8P, 15q, and 22q; specific environmental insults or stress are hypothesized to be acting in the vulnerable brain a long different stages of biological and/or psychological development. The interaction of specific genes and specific environment insults/stress along different stages of development will result in specific neurobiological abnormalities as shown in neuropsychological, neurophysiological and neurochemical/neuroimaging abnormalities. For this hypothesis testing, this PPG of SEFOS designs 3 projects of: (1) A Study on Neurobiology of Schizophrenia; (2) A Study on Environmental insults/stress of schizophrenia; and (3) Molecular Genetics Study of Schizophrenia. Project No.1 aims at finding different levels of neurobiological and anatomical abnormalities; Project No.2 aims at finding different levels of environmental insults/ stress; Project No.3 aims at locating vulnerability genes in different chromosome regions. A core unit for administrative integration, for case/family recruitment and statistical analysis is also designed. The dynamic etiological complex will be explored under multivariate statistical analysis. This PPG of SEFOS adopts multidisciplinary approach including clinical psychiatrists, psychopathologists, neuropsychologist, neurophysiologist, neuroimaging (magnetic resonance imaging) specialist, genetic epidemiologist, molecular genetic specialist, genetic statistician, and biostatisticians. This team has sound mutual trust base on the experience of being working together and attending regular research meeting for the part several years under the leadership of the principal investigator of this PPG.

The overall purpose of this research is to look at how two of the most commonly prescribed newer antipsychotic medications, risperidone and olanzapine, affect substances in the body such as glucose and insulin. Undesirable changes in blood sugar control, or glucose regulation, and type 2 diabetes can occur more commonly in individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy subjects and subjects with other psychiatric conditions. While abnormalities in glucose regulation were first reported in schizophrenia before the introduction of antipsychotic medications, antipsychotic treatment may contribute significantly to abnormalities in glucose regulation. Attention to the way that antipsychotic medications may affect glucose regulation has increased as doctors have become more concerned in general about disease- and drug-related medical complications, including weight gain during antipsychotic treatment.

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 effects of the ECT in schizophrenia ultra-resistant were studied in short times (4-6 months in most studies with follow-up). The literature identified a high relapse rate of 32% in the weeks to months after ECT discontinuation. The use of the ECT in the prevention of the relapse is partially known. In an empirical way, experts recommend protocols of prevention of the relapse going from 6 to 12 months. Nevertheless, the profit of a long cure (12 months) compared with a short cure (6 months) was never determined. Therefore, the investigators decided to lead a prospective randomized controlled study in order to compare the response rates between the two strategies of clozapine and ECT combinations applied to URS patients. The treatment consisted either in a short therapy of six months or a longer course of therapy of twelve months. To the investigators' knowledge, it is the first study which compares two ECT strategies (both the short duration and the longer one) for the treatment of URS patients.

Based on the hypothesis that high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation(rTMS) on the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC) and left parietal cortex(LPC) could normalise cognitive abnormalities by promoting hippocampal neurogenesis and cortical-hippocampal function in patients with schizophrenia,this research plan to utilise multimodal functional magnetic imaging method(including structural MRI,resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and 1H-MRS) to investigate therapeutic efficacy of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) on cognitive impairment in SZ patients with memory defects,as well as to elucidate the correlation between treatment effects and hippocampal neuroplasticity.

The Aim of this National study is to examine whether music therapy can reduce negative symptoms and raise Quality of Life for patients suffering from Schizophrenia. It is an Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), double-blinded study with two arms. 120 Participants are anticipated. The two Arms consist of 25 weekly hours of Music Therapy by educated Music Therapists and time compensated Music Listening by unknown Care Staff Members. The Study is a close Cooperation between Aalborg University (The Music Therapy Research Clinic) and Aalborg University Hospital, Psychiatry.

This project is mainly to clarify the optimal treatment plan and the treatment recommendation sequence of different drugs in Chinese first-episode schizophrenia patients,to identify the optimized sequential treatment regimen for the treatment of resistance patients and provide new evidence for the revision of the guidelines for the treatment of schizophrenia.