Active clinical trials for "Depressive Disorder"

Context - As men age, testosterone levels decline leading to symptoms that overlap with the symptoms of major depression. Little is known about the potential role of testosterone in the treatment of major depression.Objective - To assess the levels of bioavailable testosterone and total levels of testosterone in men diagnosed with major depressive disorder between the ages of 40 and 65.Design, Setting and Participants - 50 men between the ages of 40 and 65 and who suffer from major depressive disorder will be compared with 50 age matched healthy controls in an outpatient hospital setting. Main Outcome Measures - Bioavailable testosterone and total testosterone levels will be measured as well as blood pressure, pulse rate, height, weight, waist and hip measurements. Medical and psychiatric history will be assessed by the study physician. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) will be used to administered by the physician to ensure that the patient meets the DSM-IV criteria for Major Depression. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D-17) will be used to assess depression symptom severity. A Symptom/Side Effect Rating Scale will also be administered to measure the presence and severity of side effects that each patient may be experiencing. In addition, the SEX FX questionnaire will be administered. Each patient will be asked to complete a series of self-report measures including the Social Adaptation Self-Evaluation Scale Questionnaire (SASS), the Androgen Deficiency in Aging Males (ADAM) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II).

This study will investigate how the brain process emotions in healthy people and in patients who have major depression in order to better understand the causes of depression. It will examine what happens in the brain when a person responds to words related to different emotions while the brain's ability to manufacture a chemical called serotonin is reduced. Serotonin regulates functions such as emotion, anxiety and sleep, and stress hormones such as cortisol. In this study, participants' serotonin levels are reduced by depleting tryptophan, an amino acid that is the main building block for serotonin. Healthy volunteers and patients with major depression that has been in remission for at least 3 months may be eligible for this study. Candidates must be between 18 and 50 years of age and right-handed. They are interviewed about their medical and psychiatric history, current emotional state and sleep pattern, and family history of psychiatric disorders. Screening also includes psychiatric interviews and rating scales, neuropsychological tests, physical examination, electrocardiogram (EKG), and blood, urine, and saliva tests. Women have their menstrual phase determined by a blood test and home urine ovulation test kit. The study involves two clinic visits in which participants undergo tryptophan depletion and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Subjects arrive at the NIH Clinical Center in the morning after fasting overnight. They fill out questionnaires have a blood sample drawn, and then take 74 capsules that contain a mixture of amino acids found in the diet. At one visit they are given capsules that contain a balanced mixture of amino acids one would normally eat in a day; at the other visit, some of the capsules contain lactose instead of tryptophan, causing tryptophan depletion. At 2 p.m. participants fill out the same questionnaires they completed at the beginning of the day and have another blood sample drawn. Then they do a computerized test in the MRI scanner. MRI uses a magnet and radio waves to obtain pictures of the brain. For the test, subjects lie on a narrow bed that slides into the cylindrical MRI scanner. They are asked to press a button in response to words associated with different emotions that appear on a screen. Arterial spin labeling - a test that uses magnetism to measure blood flow in different areas of the brain-is also done during the procedure. After the scan, subjects eat a meal and then return home. DNA from the participants' blood samples is also examined to try to better understand the genetic causes of depression. Some of the white cells from the samples may also be grown in the laboratory so that additional studies can be done later. ...

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of preventive treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) (escitalopram) in the first year after acute coronary syndromes (ACS). Methods: 240 patients with acute coronary syndromes (ST-elevation myocardial infarction [STEMI]), non-STEMI or unstable angina) will be enrolled within 8 weeks after ACS and will be randomly assigned to treatment with escitalopram/placebo (5-20 mg) in 52 weeks. Primary outcome measures are the diagnosis of depression and HDS (Hamilton Depression Scale). Psychiatric measurements: SCAN (Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry), HDS, HAS (Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale), Udvalg for Kliniske Undersogelser (UKU) Side Effect Rating Scale, ESSI (Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease [ENRICHD] Social Support Instrument), SF-36 (Short Form-36 Health Survey), SCL-92 (Symptom Check List) and BDI (Beck´s Depression Inventory). Cardiological measurements are blood pressure, electrocardiography, echocardiography (left ventricular ejection fraction), heart rate variability and use of medicine. Discussion: ACS patients with mental illness are usually only diagnosed to a very small extent during admission in a cardiologic department. These patients mainly remain untreated with an increased risk of somatic comorbidity and mortality. Therefore, it is in accordance with ethical principles to conduct a double blind, placebo-controlled study investigating the interface between anxiety, depression and ACS. Even in this blinded study, where one of the groups are treated with placebo, there will be a higher degree of treatment of depressive symptoms due to the low recognition of this problem. Conclusion: The DECARD study is the first study evaluating the effect of prophylactic treatment of depression in patients with ACS. The study will show if prophylactic treatment will improve cardiac prognosis.

To examine the separate and interactive effects of hostility, depressive symptomatology and socioeconomic status (SES) in predicting coronary heart disease risk.

The purpose of this study is to use positron emission tomography (PET) imaging to measure the activity of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) in the brains of depressed and non-depressed individuals.

This study examines whether depression in people with borderline personality disorder is different than depression in people without borderline personality disorder. Unlike people who have depression alone (i.e. without borderline personality disorder), people with borderline personality disorder have depressions that often do not improve with medications. This makes treating depression much more challenging in someone with borderline personality disorder than without borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorderis associated with difficulty in understanding and communicating feelings. Impaired emotion processing may reflect dysfunction of an area of the brain, the anterior cingulate. Depression is associated with changes in anterior cingulate activity. The investigators believe that when borderline personality disorder is present with depression, brain activity changes in the anterior cingulate will not be the same as in depressed patients without borderline personality disorder. An electroencephalogram records brain electrical activity. In this study, the investigators will measure electroencephalogram indices reflecting anterior cingulate activity. HYPOTHESIS: In this study, the investigators predict that when borderline personality is present with depression, electroencephalogram indices of anterior cingulate activity will be different from when depression is present alone (without borderline personality). This could help to explain why people with borderline personality have depressions that are harder to treat than depressions in people without borderline personality. The investigators also predict that electroencephalogram indices of the anterior cingulate will reflect emotional processing ability, as measured by validated questionnaires.

The goal of this study is to determine whether there are unique markers on neuroimaging that are associated with depression in epilepsy.

The participants of this study have been diagnosed with mild to moderate depression with no evidence of suicidal actions prior to recruitment. All recruited subjects receive standard therapy and participate in a metacognitive training program (D-MKT) independently of study participation. Diagnostic and therapeutical interventions are not part of this study. As part of this study, the change of cognitive and psychosocial achievement/behavior in patients with mild to moderate depression after taking part in the training program is being investigated. The training program seeks to enable group members to recognize and correct the often automatic and unconscious thought patterns that accompany depression, in part by viewing this depressive thought process at a distance (i.e., depersonalizing). In addition, dysfunctional assumptions about one's thought processes, as well as dysfunctional coping-strategies (i.e., thought suppression, rumination as problem-solving) are targeted (Lena Jelinek & Steffen Moritz, http://clinical-neuropsychology.de/metacognitive_training_for_depression.html). Within this study the cognitive and psychosocial behaviour changes are being investigated by neuropsychological assessment as well as questionnaires.

This is a Phase 2 double-blind, long-term observational follow-up study of participants from Study PSIL201. Participants providing informed consent will be enrolled into this study and will complete web surveys and telephone interviews conducted by one central site at the following time intervals: months 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (± 7 days for each assessment) and months 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 (± 14 days for each assessment).

Aim of this study is to investigate neuronal differences (EEG/evoked potentials; functional MRI) between patients with major depression and healthy controls concerning brain activity after acute pain as well as changes of pain related brain activity during treatment with escitalopram.