75 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The purpose of this research is to learn more about a new treatment for individuals with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with heightened symptoms of anhedonia (i.e. loss of pleasure or interest in activities). The treatment is called Prism, and it is a software device intended for a novel form of neurofeedback training to be used in a clinic setting. During this study, the subject will use different techniques to measure brain activities, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate how well aticaprant works as compared with placebo when given along with an antidepressant therapy in improving the depressive symptoms in adult participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) with moderate to severe anhedonia (ANH+) who have not responded well to current antidepressant therapy with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor/serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SSRI or SNRI).
The purpose of this 8-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, study is to explore new treatment options for people with depression who have high inflammation and anhedonia. Seventy male and female participants with depression, between 25-55 years of age, with higher levels of inflammation and anhedonia will be randomized to receive L-DOPA or matched placebo over 8 weeks. Participants will complete lab tests, medical and psychiatric assessments, motivation and motor tasks, and MRI scans as part of the study. The total length of participation is approximately 10 to 12 weeks.
This trial will test the effects of a positive emotion-focused preventive intervention on reward responsiveness in children of mothers with histories of depression and anhedonia.
The purpose of this research study is to better understand anhedonia in Major Depressive Disorder by investigating the reward-related neural and inflammatory correlates.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of aticaprant compared with placebo as adjunctive therapy to an antidepressant in improving depressive symptoms in adult participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) with moderate to severe anhedonia (ANH+) who have had an inadequate response to current antidepressant therapy with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI).
The goal of the ADEPT Study is to understand anhedonia in young people and how it changes based on treatments targeting the brain circuit underlying it. Anhedonia is a challenging mental health symptom that involves difficulty with motivation to experience pleasant events. This study could help develop treatments for people whose depression does not improve with traditional treatments. The ADEPT Study includes two phases. In Phase 1, participants are asked to go through a series of activities to measure anhedonia, including MRI scans, blood draws, behavioral tasks, clinical interviews, questionnaires, and app-based assessments of experiences and behaviors. Phase 2 involves therapeutic activities, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), positive affect training, and, for some people, ketamine administration. If the participant qualifies and is interested, they may choose to do Phase 2 activities in addition to Phase 1.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of aticaprant compared with placebo as adjunctive therapy to an antidepressant in improving depressive symptoms in adult participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) with moderate-to-severe anhedonia (ANH+) who have had an inadequate response to current antidepressant therapy with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI).
This study examines how people respond to rewards and losses, and the extent to which these responses are linked or distinct among people experiencing depressed mood, anhedonia, and/or anxiety.
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) will engage reward-related brain circuitry, more specifically the uncinate fasciculus (UF) tract, which connects the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) regions. Also to evaluate whether the changes in the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the UF tract are associated with changes of clinical symptoms of anhedonia and finally to investigate the moderation role of simulated electric fields (EFs) in an association between FA of the UF and symptoms of anhedonia.
To evaluate the efficacy of NBI-1065846 compared with placebo on improving symptoms of anhedonia in participants with major depressive disorder (MDD).
Investigating whether delta-beta cross-frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation can increase goal-directed behavior in participants with major depressive disorder and elevated symptoms of anhedonia.
The purpose of this 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study is to explore new treatment options for people with depression who have high inflammation and anhedonia. Thirty-five male and female participants with depression, between the ages of 25-55 years of age, will be randomized to two study tracks (A and B) to receive both placebo and three doses of L-DOPA, given in different orders. Increases or decreases in each dose will occur gradually over 6 weeks of the study. Participants will complete lab tests, medical and psychiatric assessments, neurocognitive testing and functional MRI (fMRI) scans as part of the study. The total length of participation is about 2 months.
The overall goal of this project is to develop a novel transdiagnostic treatment for anhedonia, called Behavioral Activation Treatment for Anhedonia (BATA), using ultra-high field functional neuroimaging. There is a critical need for a validated treatment that specifically targets anhedonia, and this project will evaluate the effects of this new treatment on anhedonia and will establish how this treatment impacts brain systems that mediate reward processing, clinical symptoms of anhedonia, functional outcomes, and behavioral indices of reward processing. This work will also identify brain targets by which future novel anhedonia treatment may be evaluated.
The proposed research addresses a major mental health issue (anhedonia) with a novel computationally-inspired translational technique in both humans and mice. This approach greatly increases the likelihood that a positive animal model result will be successfully translated to humans. This research plan thus offers a novel way to address the NIMH's mission of defining mechanisms of complex behaviors.
Anhedonia is a symptom dimension that characterizes many individuals suffering from depression, as well as some types of anxiety, psychosis, and substance use. For the most part, treatments are effective in decreasing negative affect but ineffective in improving anhedonia, with some antidepressant medications even worsening symptoms of anhedonia. Yet anhedonia is a significant marker of poor prognosis as well as suicidal ideation and actual suicide. The development of effective treatments for anhedonia is thus of paramount importance. Advances in neuroscience indicate specific targets that may underlie anhedonia that can be shifted through behavioral training. The investigators have developed such a program and found it to be effective in raising positive affect, especially for depressed or anxious individuals with anhedonia at baseline. To date, this program has been implemented by highly trained clinicians, which have supervised its implementation on a large scale. Moreover, the behavior program is dependent on readily available rewarding experiences, which anhedonia obviously challenges. Furthermore, mechanistic evaluation is impeded by intra¬- and inter-¬individual variability in exposure to rewarding stimuli. Virtual Reality (VR) offsets these barriers by repeated controlled immersion in experiences designed to enhance approach motivation, initial responsiveness to reward attainment, and reward learning. In this current study, the investigators aim to measure clinical outcomes using Virtual Reality-Reward Training (VR-RT).
The overall goal of this project is to develop a novel transdiagnostic treatment for anhedonia, called Behavioral Activation Treatment for Anhedonia (BATA), using ultra-high field functional neuroimaging. There is a critical need for a validated treatment that specifically targets anhedonia, and this project will evaluate the effects of this new treatment on anhedonia and will establish how this treatment impacts brain systems that mediate reward processing, clinical symptoms of anhedonia, functional outcomes, and behavioral indices of reward processing. This work will also identify brain targets by which future novel anhedonia treatment may be evaluated.
The purpose of this study is to examine anhedonia as a potential moderator of treatment outcomes for Cocaine Use Disorder (CUD). Specifically, this study will investigate how anhedonia affects outcomes in contingency management (CM) treatment for CUD and whether anhedonia mediates the effects of adjunctive treatment with a dopaminergic (DAergic) drug, d-amphetamine, on outcomes in CM for CUD, as well as investigate the contribution of anhedonia to overall CUD severity.
Anhedonia, decreased motivation for and sensitivity to rewarding experiences, is present in at least 1/3 of community dwelling older adults and is a feature of various psychiatric and neurological disorders, including late-life depression and Parkinson's disease. Anhedonia is associated with cognitive deficits, as well as poor clinical outcomes and increased mortality. Recent research suggests that anhedonia comprises motivational (reward "wanting") and consummatory (reward "liking") aspects. However, previous research on anhedonia has failed to dissociate these components, which may explain the contradictory findings in the literature. Recently, the Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT) was developed in an effort to dissociate reward components in anhedonia. The EEfRT is an effort-based decision-making task that measures reward "wanting", in contrast to commonly used anhedonia questionnaires, which focus on reward "liking." This novel task may provide a useful measure of components of anhedonia in older adults and in different patient populations. Thus far no data is available on this task in elderly individuals, and the cognitive and neural correlates of components of the task have not been investigated. Given the paucity of research on the neurobiology of anhedonia, cognitive neuroscience studies using this task could fill a gap in the literature. The investigators are developing a line of cognitive neuroscience studies examining anhedonia in community-dwelling older adults and in late-life depression and Parkinson's disease. This study will involve gathering pilot behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in young and older adults performing the EEfRT task. Understanding the brain mechanisms underlying anhedonia in older adults and in different patient populations will have a translational impact by elucidating biological targets for treatment.
Anhedonia, characterized as (a) the diminished motivation to participate in activities, and/or (b) diminished enjoyment of a pleasurable activity are common symptoms among women diagnosed with mood disorders. This trial aims to test three treatments adapted to reduce anhedonia. The investigators will compare three treatment groups, specifically, two doses of Behavioral Activation treatment for anhedonia (i.e., 12 weeks vs. 8 weeks of BA) with an active comparator treatment, Bipolar Disorder Collaborative Care (12 weeks of BDCC). BA is a psychotherapy approach that helps participants to identify and modify environmental sources of their depression. BDCC is a supportive care approach that educates participants to optimize their medication initiation or their existing medication regimen. The time frame for this study will be between 12-14 weeks. Specifically, participants will be evaluated and enrolled within one week, then received up to 12 weeks of treatment (tracked through this time) and then complete two evaluations (one at week 8) and another at the end of treatment (an expected average of 12-14 weeks after enrolling into treatment). Primary analyses aim to compare the dose-mechanism change in BA relative to a standard medication optimizing protocol, BDCC. The secondary analyses are to evaluate individual differences in stated patient preferences for treatment, and group differences in treatment effect on anhedonia, side effects, and quality of life.
This study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine how the brain regulates emotions in healthy people and in patients who have major depression and anhedonia (loss of feeling of pleasure in things that normally give pleasure). Healthy normal volunteers and patients between 18 and 50 years of age with major depression, with or without significant anhedonia, are eligible for this study. Candidates will be screened with a psychiatric interview, a physical examination that will include blood and urine samples, and an electrocardiogram, and a questionnaire about their emotions. Participants will perform a monetary reward task while lying in an MRI scanner. The task is similar to playing a computer video game with the possibility of winning cash. The amount of cash is largely dependent on the subject's performance. The accumulated amount of cash earned in a session will fluctuate depending on the subject's continuing performance level. That is, during a single session, a subject could lose money earned early in the session if his or her performance later in the session is not as good as earlier. MRI pictures will be taken during performance of the task. MRI uses a magnetic field and radio waves to produce images of body tissues and organs. The patient lies on a table that is moved into the scanner (a narrow cylinder) and wears earplugs to muffle loud knocking and thumping sounds that occur during the scanning process. The procedure will last about 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn how hormonal changes over the menstrual cycle affect mood symptoms in reproductive-aged women with depression that worsens during the premenstrual period. The main questions it aims to answer are: --How do fluctuations in estradiol and progesterone across the menstrual cycle affect the ability to experience pleasure and the neural sensitivity to reward in hormone-sensitive, depressed women? And consequently, how does stabilizing the luteal phase decline in estrogen and progesterone (using estradiol patches and progesterone pills) affect these changes? Participants will: * Receive hormones followed by placebo, or vice versa, for a total of four weeks across three menstrual cycles * Complete daily mood ratings * Collect home urine samples for hormone testing * Complete five biobehavioral testing sessions during which neural responses are recorded (via electroencephalography, or EEG) during an acute stress task and computer tasks
The purpose of this study is to assess the socio-demographic, disease-related and treatment-related characteristics, and the standard of care (SOC) treatment patterns of participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) with anhedonia with inadequate response to their current antidepressant treatments and treated according to the standard of care treatment.
This research will use biobehavioral approaches to generate understanding about the linkages between sleep duration and timing, stressful life events, and depressive symptoms in adolescents, with a long-term aim of developing effective preventative interventions.
This is a clinical trial study that aims to evaluate the specificity of the relationship between reduced sensitivity to social reward and social anhedonia at both behavioral and neural levels. Individuals who recently experienced their first-episode psychosis will be recruited. Participants will be randomized 1:1 to motivational interviewing or a time- and format-matched control probe. At pre- and post-probe, participants will perform two social reward learning tasks in the scanner. With this design feature, we will examine the relationship between sensitivity to social reward and reduced subjective experience of social pleasure at both the behavioral and neural levels.
The main goal of this research is to use behavioral, brain, and clinical data to determine which type of antidepressant might be optimal before people with depression start treatment.
The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of Virtual Reality-Reward Training (VR-RT) with an active control condition, Virtual Reality-Memory Training (VR-MT), on positive affect and other clinical symptoms. VR-Reward Training is a novel intervention aimed at enhancing savoring of positive experiences among individuals with depression and low positive affect through guided imaginal recounting following immersion in positive VR experiences. Target enrollment is 80 male and female participants with low positive affect, depression, and impaired functioning, who are at least 18 years old, who will be randomly assigned to 7 weeks of either Virtual Reality-Reward Training (VR-RT) or Virtual Reality-Memory Training (VR-MT). Participants will complete in-person VR sessions, laboratory assessments, self-report questionnaires as part of the study. The total length of participation is around 3 months.
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of ketamine on decision-making and emotion processing in a sample of individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).
This project will use the experimental medicine approach of a Phase IIa Proof of Mechanism 16-week, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of L-DOPA versus placebo administration in combination with a 16 week social skills training group in order to: 1) identify differences in social reward processes in adolescent and young adult ASD participants versus healthy controls as measured by fMRI activation in reward circuitry; 2) provide evidence of dopaminergic moderating effects on social reward components in ASD with greater pre- to post-treatment changes expected in the subjects randomized to L-DOPA versus placebo; 3) examine the hypothesis that baseline readouts of putative dopamine signaling (wanting activation responses) will predict the extent of fMRI reward-related activation changes pre- to post-treatment; and, 4) examine the proposed relationship between pre- to post- L-DOPA fMRI reward changes and changes in individual self-report ratings of social wanting and ratings of videotaped positive affect in a structured interaction with an examiner. The study will enroll 56 participants with DSM-5 ASD between the ages of 13-30 years of age and 18 healthy control participants without histories of psychopathology for baseline comparisons.
Using an innovative multi-modal imaging approach, this study investigates the role of the neurochemical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), brain activity, as well as hormones in understanding sex differences in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Further, the investigators will link these markers to symptoms of depression.