Active clinical trials for "Depression"

The objective of this study is to allow patients who have participated in the precursor study of BCI-024 in combination with BCI-049 versus placebo or BCI-024 alone (Protocol #CBM-IT-01) to receive 6 weeks of open-label treatment with an increased dose of BCI-024 in combination with an increased dose of BCI-049. The safety and tolerability of this higher dose of the combination will be evaluated, as will the treatment effect in reducing symptoms of depression in patients with MDD.

Depression affects over one million people in Canada, resulting in $14.4 billion per year in costs to Canadian society. In order to prevent this often lifelong disorder, it is critically important to identify risk factors for the recurrence of depression. A crucial force in maintaining depression is the generation of stressful life events. That is, individuals who have a history of depression are likely to generate the very events that precipitate future depressive episodes (e.g., relationship break-up, fired from job, conflicts with the law) due to negative personality characteristics and disrupted social support networks resulting from previous episodes. This project is the first to test a model that examines the role of negative personality, low social support, and childhood abuse and neglect as risk factors for the generation of stressful life events that predict future depression. We will test this model in a group of patients meeting formal criteria for depression who will be treated and then followed up for 12 months or until depression recurrence. With this long-term design we will be in a unique position to understand how depression is maintained over time, thus suggesting important treatment strategies to prevent depression recurrence.

Medtronic, Inc. sponsored an investigational study of the Reclaim™ Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) System in people that have treatment-resistant depression. Depression is a mood disorder and a serious medical condition that affects millions of Americans. Depressive symptoms may include loss of interest in things typically enjoyed; decreased energy levels; difficulty concentrating or making decisions; restlessness; and feelings of pessimism, hopelessness, and worthlessness. Treatment-resistant depression is a chronic and severe form of depression characterized by failure to respond to traditional forms of treatment, such as antidepressant medications and electroconvulsive therapy. Treatment-resistant depression significantly impacts quality of life, productivity, and is a major contributor of disability world-wide. This randomized, double-blind, sham stimulation-controlled, multi-center, prospective, parallel design study used deep brain stimulation technology to test whether active bilateral stimulation can safely and effectively improve depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant depression compared to sham stimulation. Participants meeting criteria for the study were implanted with the Reclaim DBS System. Participants in the active group, who received active stimulation, were compared to the control group, who received sham stimulation, during the 16-week blinded-treatment phase. All participants were monitored for changes in depressive symptoms. After the blinded-treatment phase, all participants received active stimulation. Candidates for the trial were adults who had major depressive disorder and had not responded to several treatments for depression. Participants in the study continued to receive their current antidepressant medications while participating in the trial.

Among antidepressant treatments, ECT stands as the most effective in treating acute depression. However, patient concerns with the cognitive side effects of ECT have encouraged the development of new and more focal forms of brain stimulation such as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS). However, not all patients may respond to this treatment in the way that it is currently administered and this has raised interest in finding alternative, possibly more optimal ways of administering tDCS. This study will investigate whether tDCS stimulation using an alternative electrode montage has antidepressant effects. Further sessions of tDCS, spaced less frequently, will be trialed for maintenance treatment. Mood, cognitive test performance and biomarkers will be measured periodically in the duration of the trial.

The investigators will adapt and test an existing treatment (group CBT for depression) for use in outpatient substance use treatment settings as delivered by trained substance use counselors. The investigators expect that treatment will lead to improved depression and substance use outcomes.

This study is designed to compare two treatments for depression in pre-adolescent (7-13 year old) children. A family-focused treatment will be compared to an individual child-focused treatment in this 14-week intervention.

This study is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of synchronized transcranial magnetic stimulation (sTMS) using the NeoSync EEG Synchronized TMS device (NEST) in subjects with Major Depressive Disorder. This is a multicenter study in which subjects will be randomized to receive treatment 5 days per week for 6 weeks. Subjects who complete 6 weeks of double-blind treatment may be eligible to receive up to four weeks of open label sTMS therapy or antidepressant medications during the follow-up phase of the study. Follow-up evaluation visits will be conducted during those four weeks, with the frequency of the visits determined by the treatment choice during that timeframe.

The primary outcome of this study is to determine if predictors of response can select a population of patients with MDD that is effectively treatable by augmentation with ziprasidone. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a broad category, including many forms of depressive illness, including those with only a single major depressive episode, those with episodic recurrence with intervening well states, those with chronic depressive/anxious states without intervening euthymia, and those with manic symptoms that do not meet threshold definitions of full mania/hypomania. In this heterogenous, large diagnostic definition, important groups of patients do not appear to respond well to antidepressants, and, conversely, based on observational studies, may respond well to neuroleptics. These predictors of response have begun to be identified and may serve to better design studies of neuroleptics in depressive illnesses. Among these predictors of response in MDD are clinical features that are more similar to bipolar illness than unipolar depression. These include a family history of bipolar disorder, antidepressant-induced mania, highly recurrent depressive episodes (>5), atypical depression, early age of onset of depression (< age 20), failure to respond to antidepressants, and antidepressant tolerance (initial response followed by later loss of response). The investigators propose to use these predictors to pick out patients that are more likely to respond to Geodon for MDD. This will be the first RCT of these predictors of depressive response applied to neuroleptics.

A multicenter, 10-week study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of 50 mg of desvenlafaxine succinate sustained-release formulation (DVS SR) versus placebo in the treatment of peri- and postmenopausal women with major depressive disorder

The primary object of this study is to confirm the superiority of tianeptine compared to escitalopram on effects that improves subjective and objective cognitive impairments in patients suffering from major depressive disorder.