Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinical Trials

This study investigates whether caloric vestibular stimulation can modulate a measure of insight in obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders. Read Less

Anxiety disorders are the most common form of psychopathology, and frequently begin in childhood, resulting in lifelong impairment. Increased brain activity after making mistakes, as reflected by the error-related negativity (ERN), is observed in people with anxiety disorders, even before disorder onset. The ERN is therefore of great interest as a potentially modifiable risk factor for anxiety. However, methodological issues can make the ERN difficult to measure. Increased brain activity in response to a balance disturbance, as reflected by the balance N1, resembles the ERN, but does not share its methodological issues. The investigators' preliminary data demonstrate that the balance N1 and the ERN are associated in amplitude in adults, suggesting they may depend on the same brain processes. The balance N1 has never been investigated in individuals with anxiety disorders, but it increases in amplitude within individuals under anxiety-inducing environmental contexts. Further, balance and anxiety are related in terms of brain anatomy, daily behavior, disorder presentation, and response to treatment. The present investigation will measure the ERN and the balance N1 in children (ages 9-12) with anxiety disorders, and further, how these brain activity measures change in response to a brief, 45-minute, computerized psychosocial intervention that was developed to reduce reactivity to errors, and has been shown to reduce the ERN. The investigators will recruit approximately 80 children with anxiety disorders, half of whom will be randomly assigned to the active intervention condition. The other half will be assigned to an active control condition, consisting of a different 45-minute computerized presentation. Participants assigned to the control condition can access the computerized intervention after participation in the study. The purpose of this investigation is to test the hypothesis that the balance N1 and the ERN will be reduced to a similar extent after the intervention, to demonstrate that these brain responses arise from shared brain processes. Transfer of the effect of the psycho-social intervention to the balance N1 would provide insight into prior work demonstrating that balance training can alleviate anxiety in young children, and well-documented benefits of psychotherapy to balance disorders. Collectively, these data may guide the development of multidisciplinary interventions for the prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders in children. Read Less

A number of studies from the literature suggest important behavioral, psychosocial, or radiologic changes occur following significant neurologic events or interventions such as stroke, neurosurgery, medications, radiation, systemic therapy, or injury. The purpose of this study is to describe these changes with advanced neurologic imaging and targeted neurologic and neuropsychiatric assessments. This is a non-interventional observational study of minimal risk to participants as there is no medical intervention. The results of this study will be used to inform patients, scientists, and society in the development of future treatments. Read Less

The primary aim of the present study is to examine the efficacy and safety of tolcapone in adults with moderate to severe OCD. Read Less

This study aims to investigate the effects of oral psilocybin on OCD symptomatology and provide the first evidence of the neural mechanism that may mediate psilocybin's purported therapeutic effects on OCD. Read Less

The investigators are conducting this study to learn more about the cognitive and attentional processes among individuals with three types of repetitive negative thinking (RNT): mental rituals (as seen in obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD), worries (as seen in generalized anxiety disorder, GAD), and ruminations (as seen in major depressive disorder, MDD). Specifically, the investigators are studying whether psychological treatment can help people with RNT who have trouble stopping unwanted thoughts and shifting their attention. Read Less

This project seeks to identify causal neural mechanisms underlying unwanted, repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Using non-invasive brain stimulation coupled with practice in a computer task, we will modulate activity in a target brain region and measure effects on compulsive behaviors and related measures. This work could ultimately lead to the ability to treat compulsions more effectively by targeting the regions of the brain that can help or hinder attempts to overcome compulsions. Read Less

The investigators propose to synchronize automated measurements of behavior - head, body, and face dynamics, gaze, and vocal prosody - with simultaneous recordings of brain activity in clinically relevant contexts. Read Less

The primary goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate the unique neural and behavioral effects of a one-session training combining emotion regulation skills training, with excitatory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). The secondary aim is to identify key changes in the emotion regulation neural network following the combined intervention versus each of the components alone. The third aim is to explore personalized biomarkers for response to emotion regulation training. Participants will undergo brain imaging while engaging in an emotional regulation task. Participants will be randomly assigned to learn one of two emotion regulation skills. Participants will be reminded of recent stressors and will undergo different types of neurostimulation, targeted using fMRI (functional MRI) results. Participants who may practice their emotion regulation skills during neurostimulation in a one-time session. Following this training, participants will undergo another fMRI and an exit interview to assess for immediate neural and behavioral changes. Measures of emotion regulation will be assessed at a one week and a one month follow up visit. Read Less

This research study is to investigate the safety, feasibility, and possible therapeutic benefits of a technology called Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LIFU) in patients with obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD). The device used in this study transmits high frequency sound waves to a particular region of the brain called the Ventral Striatum (VS). LIFU is a non-invasive form of stimulation, which can be used to stimulate deep regions of the brain. In this study, the investigators will administer LIFU to activate the VS area of the brain while also observing this brain stimulation with an MRI machine. Other aims of this study include learning more about the patterns of brain activity associated with OCD and seeing if brain activity changes as symptoms of OCD change over time during the two weeks of LIFU stimulation. Participants in this study will be asked to perform computer administered behavioral tasks -- similar to simple computer games -- to examine whether certain features of OCD (e.g., avoidance of feared triggers) change over the course of LIFU stimulation. The treatment phase of this research study is expected to last two weeks with three weekly (total of 6) treatment sessions all carried at the MRI brain imaging center at Baylor College of Medicine. There will be at least one additional screening visit before treatment starts and a series of follow up visits over a six-month period. Read Less

This research aims to collect comprehensive data on the clinical trial experience of OCD patients. Its goal is to identify the factors that limit patients' ability to join or complete a trial successfully. Clinical trial participation often favors specific demographic groups, and limited research exists on the impact of trial attributes on participation. Therefore, this study aims to analyze data from various demographic groups and identify any recurring trends that could provide valuable insights for future OCD patients. Read Less

The goal of this clinical trial is to discover brain-based subtypes of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and examine treatment response to two different repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) targets in the brain: the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the right prefrontal cortex (rPFC). Read Less