Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Clinical Trials

Patient Power is a patient research network and database (registry) to collect prospective information about demographics, self-reported diagnoses and medications, and willingness to participate in research from participants with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), spondyloarthritis (SpA), other musculoskeletal conditions, chronic neurological conditions like migraine, chronic pulmonary conditions like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, autoimmune dermatological conditions such as psoriasis, and other chronic inflammatory or immune-mediated conditions. In addition, since patients with chronic conditions often have other co-morbidities like cardiovascular health and obesity-related metabolic disorders, these conditions will also be included. Participants will provide information from their smartphones or personal computers. The information will be used by researchers and clinicians to help patients and their providers make better, more informed decisions about treatment of chronic conditions. Read Less

The goal of this study is to improve our understanding of speech production, and to translate this into medical devices called intracortical brain-computer interfaces (iBCIs) that will enable people who have lost the ability to speak fluently to communicate via a computer just by trying to speak. Read Less

This is a single-center, single-arm, open-label study aiming to assess the safety and feasibility of the MyoRegulator® device when used to treat individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study is the first use of the MyoRegulator® device to treat individuals with ALS. The main objective of this study is to confirm that individuals with ALS can tolerate the study treatment regimen without any evidence of serious adverse events related to the use of the device. The MyoRegulator® device is a non-significant risk (NSR) investigational non-invasive neuromodulation device that uses multi-site direct current (multi-site DCS) stimulation. It has been used in two completed clinical trials evaluating its efficacy to treat post-stroke muscle spasticity and is currently being evaluated in a third trial in this post-stroke population. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to collect CSF and blood samples that can be used in future research studies to identify potential biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collected in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients. Read Less

Brief Summary: The goal of the study is to generate a biorepository of longitudinal blood (plasma and serum), cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and urine linked to genetics and longitudinal clinical information that are made available to the research community. To accomplish these goals, we will enroll 200 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients and 80 healthy controls from multiple sites, over a 5 year time frame. Additionally, speech measures will be collected on weekly basis at home for all participants. The measurements are performed using a speech recording application installed on their personal device. For a subset of both ALS and healthy participants, we will also collect at-home vital capacity on a weekly basis. It is expected that increased frequency data sampling of these outcome measures will help in better tracking of disease progression. Biofluids and clinical information are collected over a 20-month time frame for each individual enrolled in the research study. ALS participants will be coming to clinic for 5 study visits with a 4-month interval between visits. Healthy participants will be coming for 2 study visits with a 12-month interval between visits. These samples and clinical information will be stored in a de-identified manner and made available for investigators to use in future research studies. Read Less

The aim of this study is to understand how well a 6-week virtual yogic breathing exercise program (YBEP) will improve breathing, speech, and emotional well-being in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Read Less

This project adds to non-invasive BCIs for communication for adults with severe speech and physical impairments due to neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers will optimize & adapt BCI signal acquisition, signal processing, natural language processing, & clinical implementation. BCI-FIT relies on active inference and transfer learning to customize a completely adaptive intent estimation classifier to each user's multi-modality signals simultaneously. 3 specific aims are: 1. develop & evaluate methods for on-line & robust adaptation of multi-modal signal models to infer user intent; 2. develop & evaluate methods for efficient user intent inference through active querying, and 3. integrate partner & environment-supported language interaction & letter/word supplementation as input modality. The same 4 dependent variables are measured in each SA: typing speed, typing accuracy, information transfer rate (ITR), & user experience (UX) feedback. Four alternating-treatments single case experimental research designs will test hypotheses about optimizing user performance and technology performance for each aim.Tasks include copy-spelling with BCI-FIT to explore the effects of multi-modal access method configurations (SA1.3a), adaptive signal modeling (SA1.3b), & active querying (SA2.2), and story retell to examine the effects of language model enhancements. Five people with SSPI will be recruited for each study. Control participants will be recruited for experiments in SA2.2 and SA3.4. Study hypotheses are: (SA1.3a) A customized BCI-FIT configuration based on multi-modal input will improve typing accuracy on a copy-spelling task compared to the standard P300 matrix speller. (SA1.3b) Adaptive signal modeling will allow people with SSPI to typing accurately during a copy-spelling task with BCI-FIT without training a new model before each use. (SA2.2) Either of two methods of adaptive querying will improve BCI-FIT typing accuracy for users with mediocre AUC scores. (SA3.4) Language model enhancements, including a combination of partner and environmental input and word completion during typing, will improve typing performance with BCI-FIT, as measured by ITR during a story-retell task. Optimized recommendations for a multi-modal BCI for each end user will be established, based on an innovative combination of clinical expertise, user feedback, customized multi-modal sensor fusion, and reinforcement learning. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to obtain preliminary device safety information and demonstrate proof of principle (feasibility) of the ability of people with tetraplegia to control a computer cursor and other assistive devices with their thoughts. Read Less

This is a phase 0 study that will enable an assessment of biodistribution and estimation of absorbed dose in humans based on data collected from five healthy volunteers, which is typically the minimum number required by the FDA for first-in-human studies to assess dosimetry of a new tracer. The evaluation of the brain imaging of thirty additional subjects in the 2nd part of the study will lead to a descriptive assessment of the targeting and pharmacokinetics of MPC6827 in the brain and between normal and diseased brain. Read Less

The investigators propose a longitudinal home study of ALS patients to measure the severity of speech and swallowing (bulbar) impairment via a smartphone-based, remote speech and swallow assessment (rSSA). The study is designed to assess the feasibility and validity of such a monitoring intervention. Furthermore, it is proposed that regular monitoring of these two bulbar processes may shed light on their co-evolution over the course of ALS. Read Less

Longitudinally collect biomarkers from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and control participants in order to further elucidate both potential causes and treatments for ALS. Samples and clinical information will be collected from patients with ALS and controls. Read Less

The UAB Institute for Arts In Medicine (AIM) is currently implementing an expressive emotional writing pilot project for adults with paralysis caused by neurological conditions such as traumatic head or spinal cord injury. Read Less