Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

The ability to understand the other's perspective and respond accordingly is the most important normal process of daily social life and is probably one of the foundations of human existence. This capability is reflected, inter alia, as an imitation - an important and effective form of learning which is very developed in humans. When we are required to imitate a particular movement, speed of response depends on the perspective of the movement. Imitative response is implemented faster when the movement is observed from first-person perspective, than if the motion is presented from the perspective of a third party. While healthy individuals don't find it difficult to imitate, or to understand the other's emotion expression, there are psychiatric populations (such as autism and schizophrenia) who find it difficult to demonstrate these capabilities (Park, Matthews et al. 2008). Beyond these capabilities impairment, schizophrenic patients have difficulty distinguishing between their arm movements and those of a foreign hand and find it difficult to leave the boundaries of egocentric interpretation of reality and adopt the other's point of view. These behavioral disorders arise from defects in the network of mirror neurons (Buccino and Amore 2008; Langdon, Coltheart et al. 2010). Therefore, the investigator expect that schizophrenic patients will not see a preference for movements that will be displayed in first-person perspective from the same movements that will be displayed from the perspective of a third party. Consequently, the investigator speculate that these subjects will not exhibit differences at imitating the response of which will be presented from different perspectives (Jackson, Meltzoff et (al. 2006.

Diabetes is 2-5 times more common in schizophrenia and it is a preventable; but the current diabetes prevention guidelines are not suitable for implementation in the severely mentally ill population. The principles of diabetes prevention are essentially dietary regulation, increased physical activity and adjunctive use of oral anti-diabetic drugs (metformin). In a modified diabetes prevention protocol suitable for use in mentally ill population, we packaged the original guide lines with an adventure and recreation program based on principles of experiential learning, cognitive restructuring and behaviour modification. In this proposed study, we plan to evaluate the feasibility of adopting the new protocol, and examine its effectiveness in preventing diabetes.

Nicotine dependence is very common among individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Cotinine is a chemical that is made by the body from nicotine. Measuring levels of nicotine and cotinine is an accurate way to determine how much cigarette smoke enters a person's body. The purpose of this study is to measure nicotine and cotinine levels in smokers with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder to determine if such individuals absorb more nicotine per cigarette than smokers without schizophrenia-related disorders.

The purpose of this study is to determine if Cognitive - Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST) improves functioning in older patients with schizophrenia.

The purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the genetic causes of specific neurologic and psychiatric disorders. The study will focus on conditions of mental retardation, childhood onset schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), atypical psychosis of childhood, and bipolar affective disorder. The study addresses the belief that there may be several genes contributing to the illness. Researchers intend to use several molecular genetic techniques in order to identify the areas of chromosomes containing genes responsible for the development of these disorders. Patients will be selected to participate in this study based on an early age of onset of their condition as well as the severity of the illness and the frequency of the illness among family members. Researchers will collect DNA samples from patients as well as affected and unaffected family members of each patient. The DNA samples collected will be analyzed for a variety of genetic abnormalities including; triplet repeat expansions, chromosome rearrangements, and polymorphisms.

The study is performed in 20 different hospitals from 19 cities in China. Three sub-projects are included. About sub-project 1, we build a clinical database system and a biological sample bank for data and samples management, which is applicable in other hospitals in this project. 1800 first-episode schizophrenia patients will be recruited in 19 sites and randomized into 6 treatment groups (olanzapine, risperidone, aripiprazole, ziprasidone, amisulpride, haloperidol). Through 8-week treatment and follow-up, we collect multidimensional indexes from psychopathology, neuropsychology, brain imaging, physiology, biochemistry, and life stress data. The summarized data is analyzed to screen potential biomarkers or biomarker panel that may predict the antipsychotic response, and ultimately to establish a prediction model.Sub-project 2, as an extension of sub-project 1, includes verification of the prediction model established in sub-project 1 and optimization of the current therapy with add-on treatment. Firstly, the validation process of the prediction model undergoes with an independent patient cohort. Next, we apply the add-on treatment to the patients who don't have ideal response to antipsychotic treatment after 8-week treatment. According to the results above, we manage to construct an optimized and individualized therapy for schizophrenia.In the end,We tend to conduct a randomized double-blind controlled trial to assess the safety and efficacy of the combination strategy for antipsychotic-induced metabolism syndrome, which includes metformin and lifestyle intervention. In the meanwhile, for schizophrenia patients at high-risk of metabolic syndrome, we tend to establish a prevention strategy expected to reduce or delay the occurrence of metabolic syndrome, which includes low-dose metformin and lifestyle intervention. We hope to successfully construct a comprehensive intervention strategy on metabolic syndrome induced by antipsychotic medications.

This is a two-part trial. The primary objective of Part A is to estimate the ratio of geometric means of pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters and their within-subject variability for the 300mg quetiapine tablet formulation A and the 300mg quetiapine tablet formulation B compared to 300mg Seroquel. The primary objective of Part B is to estimate the ratio of geometric means of PK parameters and their within-subject variability for the selected tablet formulation from Part A of 25mg quetiapine compared to 25mg Seroquel.

Beside these well-known symptoms (positive symptoms (such as delirium and delusions), negative symptoms (such as affective flattening and impoverishment of speech), disorganized behavior, patients with schizophrenia show different kinds of cognitive alterations and motor abnormalities. In schizophrenia, postural impairment could increase the attentional cost of daily motor tasks, leading to a lack of attentional resources, essential to achieve complex cognitive tasks. The intrication of cognitive and postural processings (both impaired in schizophrenia) can be explored by using of a dual-task paradigm.

This study aims to determine if the addition of Sodium Benzoate and / or NAC to TAU will be acceptable and tolerable and result in overall improvement of symptoms, social and cognitive functioning in patients with early schizophrenia spectrum disorder.

The aim of this study is observation, in an Italian real-world setting, of metabolic effects in patients with schizophrenia who will switch from any mono-therapy or poly-therapy antipsychotic regimen to monotherapy with lurasidone or to one of the other four most used atypical antipsychotics.