Active clinical trials for "Schizophrenia"

Purpose and objective Schizophrenia is a chronic debilitating illness with cognitive deficits that cause serious impairment in psychosocial recovery and with few treatments to remediate these deficits. One area that holds great promise for the development of novel, effective therapies is noninvasive brain stimulation. The investigators have used one form of brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), for some time to modulate and enhance cognitive function in the brain, especially working memory (WM) function, which has a central role in most executive processing that occurs in the brain. Theta burst stimulation (TBS) is a paradigm of TMS which has been shown to effectively modulate WM. Moreover, TBS can modulate gamma neural oscillations in the brain and neural activity, both of which have been implicated in the physiology of WM and pathophysiology of the disease process in schizophrenia, making these measures highly valuable for assessing physiological effects of TBS on cognition, quality of life and cortical inhibition. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of TBS on WM in patients with schizophrenia, to develop evidence for potential brain stimulation techniques to treat cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Study activities and population group: Study subjects will be inpatient schizophrenic individuals with minimal positive symptoms and predominant cognitive deficits at Duke University Hospital. In an initial session they will be screened and taught a WM task. Following this, one TBS session will follow in which TBS will target dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. They will perform the WM task before, with and after the TBS, with an expected pre-post enhancement of WM performance. Implications - There is a great need for treatments for cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. The results of this study will serve to generate pilot data for a much larger grant to develop a TBS therapy for remediating such cognitive deficits.

This study attempts to observe the effectiveness and safety of aripiprazole in hospitalized patients with acute schizophrenia episode, and to compare the different drug regimens that may be involved in order to clarify the characteristics of the population for taking aripiprazole and provide reference for clinical rational drug use.

In this study, we assessed the therapeutic effects and safety of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on negative symptoms of schizophrenia. We evaluated the efficacy of rTMS on cognition in patients with chronic schizophrenia.

In this randomized controlled trial, the researchers investigated the effectiveness of integrated supported employment (ISE) as compared with individual placement and support (IPS) and traditional vocational rehabilitation (TVR) for people with schizophrenia in mainland China.

Investigating the effects of non-invasive transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) as a treatment for auditory hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia.

Development of interventions that can effectively target and remediate the cognitive and functional impairment associated with serious mental illness is a treatment priority. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a safe, non-invasive neuromodulation technique that is capable of stimulating brain activity to facilitate learning. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the pairing of two therapeutic techniques, cognitive remediation and tDCS, as a cognitively enhancing intervention. This study is designed to test the hypotheses that cognitive remediation paired with tDCS will be more efficacious than cognitive remediation delivered with sham stimulation and that intervention-induced cognitive change will be sustainable. To examine the incremental benefit of pairing tDCS with cognitive remediation, clinically stable outpatients between the ages of 18-65 who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder will be enrolled in a double-blind, double-baseline, sham-controlled clinical trial. Participants will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either tDCS or sham stimulation concurrent with working memory focused cognitive remediation. Training will be offered to participants in a small group format. Training will consist of 48 sessions, with 2-3 sessions scheduled in a week. Each training session will last 2 hours. One hour will be spent completing cognitive exercises that require working memory skills on a computer. TDCS or sham stimulation will be offered concurrent with the first 20 minutes of training with a StarStim neuromodulator. One mA of anodal stimulation will be applied to the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex and the cathodal electrode will be placed in the contralateral supraorbital position. Upon completion of working memory training, participants will transition to a 45-minute bridging group focus on application of cognitive skills in everyday life. To assess intervention-induced change, working memory, other aspects of cognition, functional capacity, community functioning, and symptom severity will be assessed pre- and post-intervention. Sustainability of intervention-induced change will be assessed with an assessment session 6 weeks post-intervention. Mixed effect, repeated measure ANOVAS will be used to analyze intervention-induced change.

This is a phase 3, multicenter, randomized, active-controlled trial to assess the efficacy and safety of aripiprazole Intramuscular Depot in the acute treatment of adults with schizophrenia. The trial will include a 13-day screening phase and a 12-week acute treatment phase with a 14(±2)-day safety follow-up.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether cognitive training exercises can improve cognitive functioning in young patients with recent-onset psychosis who are being treated in community mental health settings using the NAVIGATE model. The investigators will examine the effects of web-based cognitive training exercises delivered on iPads. Participants will be randomized to one of three conditions, and will be assessed at Baseline, Post-Intervention, and 6 Month Follow Up on measures of clinical, neurocognitive, and functional status.

m-RESIST is an m-health intervention program aimed to develop, test and evaluate a tool to allow patients suffering from treatment-resistant schizophrenia to self-manage their condition. This may facilitate acceptance and involvement of patients with their own treatment, as well as of caregivers. Moreover this programme could provide a new tool to the psychiatrist, psychologists working together with other health care professionals, to better monitor patients, through a personalised and optimised therapeutic process. The present document corresponds to the pilot field-trials phase included in a three year European research project, co-funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union (grant agreement nº 643552). This document summarises the protocol of the whole therapeutic process, specifying all the procedures included in the program. This protocol will be implemented in three countries: Israel, Hungary and Spain, in order to test acceptability, usability, satisfaction and changes in the quality of life reported by the end-users.

Primary study: This study is a single-site, double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial to compare an evidence-based structured program of 30-35 hours of on-line cognitive and social cognitive training exercises performed over 16 weeks (~2 hours per week), delivered with an innovative digital app which provides users with a motivation coach to set personalized goals and with secure social networking for peer support, "PRIME" ; vs. 2) A control condition of computer games, encouraged at ~2 hours per week over 16 weeks, delivered with "PRIME". Unblinded Cognitive Training Sub-Study: Participants who were randomized to the computer games arm of the trial may be offered access to the active cognitive training at the end of their 6 month follow up appointments, if they still meet inclusion criteria. PRIME Super Users Sub-Study: Participants who have provided all follow up data to the initial study, including those who are currently enrolled in the Unblinded Cognitive Training sub-study, may be offered continued participation in the PRIME community as super-users.