15 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Participants will be asked to participate in this research study of a device that creates transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The researchers hope to learn if 30 minute sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) improve such a mood or feelings in people with Alzheimer's Disease. This study involves the use of an investigational device called a tDC stimulator. "Investigational" means that the device has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food \& Drug Administration (FDA) for treating Alzheimer's Disease. This study will help find out what effects, good and/or bad, this has. The safety of this device in humans has been tested in prior research studies; however, some side effects may not yet be known.
Mood disorders are associated with significant financial and health costs for the United States, partially due to cognitive problems in these patients that can worsen disease course and impair treatment response. This study proposes to use smartphone-based technology to monitor cognitive problems in patients with mood disorders by linking brain network changes with predicted worsening of mood symptoms. The proposed study will provide evidence for using smartphone-based passive sensing as a cost-effective way to predict illness course and treatment response.
The goal of this study is to test a novel intervention for children ages 6-11 with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Conduct problems are among the most prevalent and costly mental health conditions of childhood, and a common antecedent to adult psychiatric disorders. An established risk factor for early, persistent, and severe youth misconduct is the presence of CU traits. CU traits (e.g., lack of empathy or guilt, shallow affect) are analogous to the core affective features of adult psychopathy, interfere with child socialization, and predict poorer outcomes, even with well-established treatments for disruptive behavior disorders. Thus, novel intervention approaches are needed to target CU traits. Youth with elevated CU traits show deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER) for distress-related expressions, particularly fear or sadness. The central hypothesis is that impaired sensitivity for emotional distress cues (fear and/or sadness) is mechanistically linked to CU traits in children, and that, by targeting affect sensitivity directly, intervention can exert downstream effects on CU traits. A gap in the field regards how to remediate these neurocognitive deficits. This project will directly target affect sensitivity in high-CU youth. The investigators propose an experimental therapeutics approach to develop a novel neurocognitive intervention for CU traits, in which a clearly identified target, facial affect sensitivity (FAS), will be engaged and assessed via primary (distress FER accuracy and/or heightened eye gaze) and secondary (electroencephalograph event-related potential) neurocognitive and behavioral processes. If investigators can demonstrate engagement of the target (FAS) in the initial R61 phase, then in the R33 phase, this finding will be replicated with a new, larger sample, and feasibility and preliminary efficacy of FAST on CU traits will be examined. The long-term goal is to examine FAST impact on behavioral outcomes and to potentially apply this targeted intervention to the wider range of problems associated with CU traits.
The goal of this clinical trial is to test a new cognitive training program to improve emotion regulation in adults. The investigators' primary aim is to determine whether participating in this program addresses two key features of emotion dysregulation associated with psychiatric disorders: (1) emotion-related impulsivity and (2) rumination. The investigators will further evaluate participants' perceived acceptability and feasibility of treatment procedures. Secondarily, the investigators will examine the effects of this cognitive training intervention on psychiatric symptoms and overall functioning. The researchers will compare the cognitive training program to a waitlist control. Participants will be asked to complete eight weekly sessions (over two months) involving cognitive training exercises with a "coach", in addition to a baseline assessment before starting the intervention and post-treatment assessment. Each assessment includes a combination of in-person and remote data collection using self-report questionnaires, psychophysiology, and a neuropsychological battery. Participants will also complete one week of ecological momentary assessment before and after the intervention as well as a set of follow-up questionnaires administered remotely six weeks following their final training session. Researchers will compare participants randomly assigned to complete the intervention without delay to a control group of participants randomly assigned to a two-month waitlist before joining the intervention. Before beginning cognitive training, participants in the control condition will complete an additional pre-intervention/post-waitlist assessment, which will follow parallel procedures to the initial baseline assessment.
This study will examine the effects of Isha Kriya meditation on stress and burnout among healthcare providers.
This clinical trial will compare the effectiveness of the Healthy Outcomes through Patient Empowerment (HOPE) intervention to enhanced usual care (EUC) for diabetes and depression at 6 and 12 month follow-up. The proposed study is a randomized controlled trial enrolling 242 largely rural Veterans with uncontrolled diabetes and clinically-significant depressive symptoms. Both groups will receive screening, education, and notification of clinical findings along with follow-up in usual primary care. HOPE participants will also receive behavioral coaching telephone sessions over a six month period. Patients in the control group will be screened, and providers will be notified of high risk patients' status and need for intervention. Both groups will receive only usual primary care during the subsequent 6 month maintenance period. Study measurements using self-report questionnaires will also be collected at baseline, 6 and 12 months follow-up. The investigators will also conduct chart reviews to evaluate usual care blood tests for diabetes control. Changes in measurements from baseline will be compared between groups. This intervention will reach Veterans in rural setting where community-based primary care is needed, especially care that blends treatment strategies for physical and emotional health.
The investigators are seeking people who have been exposed to a traumatic event in the past and have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) currently. A person with PTSD may feel significant distress when reminded of a traumatic event or feel depressed, anxious or jumpy. As a part of this study, participants will receive brain MRIs and office assessments before and after psychotherapy. The investigators provide the gold-standard psychotherapy for PTSD, "Prolonged Exposure", free of charge; additionally participants are compensated for their time during assessment procedures. This study is exploring the brain circuitry involved in improvement in response to psychotherapy.
Emotionally labile, depressed participants with multiple sclerosis treated with escitalopram will have a greater reduction in emotional lability scores and in their psychological distress scores than those who are randomized to receive placebo.
-Purpose: Phase I: To test the methods, data collection and analysis in a study to evaluate cognitive/affective/sleep symptoms in one patient undergoing treatment with high-dose Interleukin-2 (IL-2) for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), their informal caregiver and their primary nurse. Phase II: A pilot study examining up to 10 IL-2 cases to describe cognitive/affective/sleep symptoms of patients receiving high-dose IL-2 therapy for metastatic melanoma (MM) or metastatic RCC in order to develop interventional studies to minimize these symptoms. -Aims: In this pilot, a case is comprised of the metastatic RCC patient receiving IL-2, their care partner, and their primary nurse. The care partner for this study will be the family member or friend staying with the IL-2 patient throughout treatment. Phase I (Evaluation of Methods and Procedures): One case will be examined to evaluate the methods, data collection and analysis to be used in this study. The aims of Phase I of this study are to: Aim 1) Evaluate recruitment and enrollment procedures to enroll one IL-2 case, comprised of the IL-2 patient, their care partner and their primary nurse; Aim 2) Evaluate administration procedures, data collected, and analysis of four questionnaire scales to detect the trajectory of cognition \[Attentional Function Index and Montreal Cognitive Assessment\] and affect \[Hamilton Anxiety scale and Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Clinician\] in the IL-2 patient from the start to the end of a cycle of treatment; Aim 3) Evaluate procedures, data collected and analysis of journal entries from the care partner who are to record their thoughts, observations, and feelings concerning any changes in the patient's behavior or cognition during IL-2 treatment every 8 hours; Aim 4) Evaluate procedures, data collected and analysis of semi-structured questionnaires completed by the primary nurse taking care of the patient receiving IL-2 which will describe any changes in behavior or cognition in the patient during their IL-2 treatment; and Aim 5) Evaluate procedures, data collected and analysis of data of interviews with the IL-2 patient to further discern what symptoms endorsed on the measurement scales represent and how they are characterized, and interviewing the primary nurse to gain any additional data on cognitive/affective symptoms observed in the IL-2 patient. Phase II (Investigating Cognitive, Affective and Sleep Alterations in Patients Receiving high dose IL-2 therapy): Up to 10 additional cases will be enrolled to understand cognitive, affective and sleep symptoms induced from IL-2 therapy in oncology patients with MM or metastatic RCC, and help design future studies to ameliorate these treatment-limiting symptoms. The specific aims of this study are to: Aim 1) Describe cognitive (language, concentration, mental fatigue, confusion, attention, short-term memory, and orientation), affective (depression, anxiety, mood alterations), and sleep disturbance symptoms in patients receiving 1 to 4 cycles (up to 8-weeks) of high-dose IL-2 therapy. Aim 2) Examine observed patient experiences of cognitive/affective/sleep symptoms from each patient's primary care partner, and primary nurse during 1 to 4 cycles of IL-2 therapy. Aim 3) Describe the trajectories of cognitive/affective/sleep symptoms in patients with MM or metastatic RCC undergoing 1 to 4 cycles of IL-2 therapy. Not all patients will receive 4 cycles of IL-2, because treatment will depend on a) disease progression and b) side effect toxicity; therefore, the symptom trajectory will be described for the cycles completed in situations where all cycles are not completed.
The purpose of this study is to study the effects of attention training interventions on symptoms and brain function in major depressive disorder.
The purpose of this research is to see if daily combination treatment of L-arginine and Kuvan changes brain chemistry in people experiencing schizophrenia as measured by MRS brain scans.
The main purpose of this study is to learn how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) helps improve negative symptoms of schizophrenia. These 'negative symptoms' include anhedonia (the inability to enjoy things), low motivation, and decreased facial expression. TMS is a noninvasive way of stimulating the brain. TMS uses a magnetic field to cause changes in activity in the brain. The magnetic field is produced by a coil that is held next to the scalp. In this study we will be stimulating the brain to learn more about how TMS may improve these symptoms from schizophrenia.
This study proposes to examine the effect of atomoxetine on quality of life and negative symptoms such as social withdrawal, lack of interest in things, lack of thought content, flat emotions, slowed body movements and lack of drive and motivation in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. This study also examines the safety of using atomoxetine along with the conventional antipsychotic in these patients.
This study investigates the underlying mechanisms of a novel emotion regulation intervention among recently bereaved spouses. More specifically, this study examines how thinking about an emotional stimulus in a more adaptive way can affect the relationship between psychological stress, psychophysiological biomarkers of adaptive cardiac response, and brain activity. The emotion regulation strategy targeted is reappraisal, specifically reappraisal-by-distancing (i.e., thinking about a negative situation in a more objective, impartial way) versus reappraisal-by-reinterpretation (i.e., thinking about a better outcome for a negative situation than what initially seemed apparent). The study seeks to determine if relatively brief, focused reappraisal training in bereaved spouses will result in reduction of self-reported negative affect, increases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; a measure of heart rate variability reflecting adaptive cardiac vagal tone), reduction in blood-based inflammatory biomarkers, and changes in neural activity over time. Reappraisal-by-distancing is expected to lead to greater changes in these variables relative to reappraisal-by-reinterpretation. Additionally, it is expected that across time decreases in self-reported negative affect, increases in RSA, reductions in blood-based inflammatory biomarker levels, and changes in neural activity will in turn lead to reductions in depressive symptoms and grief rumination. Finally, it is expected that distancing training will lead to reductions in depressive symptoms and grief rumination that are mediated by changes in the targeted neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms.
This proposal will examine the effects of estradiol administration on perimenopausal-onset (PO) anhedonia and psychosis symptoms as well as on brain function using simultaneous positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MR).