Anxiety & Depression Association of America

Study Description: This pilot study investigates the mechanisms of parosmia, a qualitative olfactory dysfunction increasingly seen after COVID-19, by examining functional and structural brain changes and peripheral inflammation. Using neuroimaging and biochemical analysis, it aims to distinguish parosmia from other olfactory disorders and provide a foundation for future diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Objectives: Primary objective: - Evaluate the feasibility, validity, and methodological framework for deep phenotyping of acquired chemosensory disorders. - Examine task-based functional connectivity patterns from the olfactory bulb to higher-order central processing regions across groups with varying olfactory symptoms. - Associate central findings with peripheral inflammatory patterns at the olfactory mucosa. Secondary Objective: -Investigate the differences and longitudinal changes in white matter microstructural integrity associated with the progression and recovery of olfactory dysfunctions across the recruited patient population. Tertiary objective: -Investigate the psychophysiological impacts of altered smell perception, with an emphasis on its negative effects on dietary habits and cognitive functions. Endpoints: Co-Primary Endpoints: To identify functional connectivity differences across subgroups, with focus on parosmia. The study hypothesizes that parosmia patients exhibit neuroinflammation at the olfactory bulb or in the amygdala and hippocampus, leading to distorted valence perception. Altered connectivity between primary and secondary olfactory cortices is expected, differing significantly from hyposmia and, to a lesser extent, anosmia. These connectivity changes are expected to correlate with variations in smell function to uncover disrupted neural pathways underlying parosmia. To identify local inflammatory signatures at the olfactory mucosa that are associated with chemosensory dysfunction and altered functional connectivity. Secondary Endpoints: To evaluate whether changes in functional connectivity are associated with structural alterations, specifically reduced axonal myelination between primary and secondary olfactory cortices (amygdala and hippocampus), in parosmia patients (along with their symptoms graph) compared to healthy controls and, to a lesser extent, anosmia patients. Longitudinal analysis will determine if these structural changes lead to higher-order neural degeneration or other significant brain alterations. Tertiary endpoints: To investigate whether regions with structural and functional differences correlate with the duration and severity of smell loss, and to assess the impact of prolonged smell dysfunction on psychological health, eating behaviors, and quality of life.

Type: Observational

Start Date: Sep 2025

open study

Background: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a treatment for depression. It stimulates the brain. Researchers want to see if using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans helps locate the best area for rTMS in each person. They also want to find other ways to make it more effective. Objective: To study the effects of combining MRI- guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and talk therapy on the brain in people with depression. Eligibility: Adults ages 18-75 with a major depressive disorder and current depression. If taking an antidepressant, should have been doing so for at least 4 weeks. Design: Participants will be screened with medical and psychiatric history, psychiatric evaluation, physical exam, and blood and urine tests. Phase 1 is 1-4 visits in 1 week. Participants will have: - Brain MRI. Participants will lie on a table in a scanner. - Questions about their medical history and psychology symptoms - Tests of mood and thinking - Tests of brain activity. Participants may do tasks during these tests: - A cone with magnetic detectors is put on the head. - A cap with electrodes is put on the scalp. - TMS. A brief electrical current passes through a wire coil on the scalp. - A metal disk will be placed on the arm. A nerve will be stimulated with a small electrical shock. Phase 2 is about 6 to 7 weeks. - There will be 30 daily sessions of combined therapy and repetitive TMS (rTMS) for 6 weeks. - Participants will receive rTMS and another therapy by computer. - For rTMS, repeated pulses will pass through the coil. - This is followed by up to 3 additional visits, when: - Participants will repeat Phase 1 tests - Participants will rate their depression symptoms. Phase 3 is 3 visits over 3 months. Participants will rate their depression symptoms and repeat some of the previous questionnaires and tests of mood and thinking.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: May 2018

open study

Spirulina platensis is a form of cyanobacteria, a blue-green algae, and is a superfood most known for being rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, and healthful phytochemicals. Spirulina supports brain health through neuroprotection offered by its antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties, and hormone regulation. The aim of this study is to supplement healthy adults from a campus community with 3g of spirulina, daily, for 8 weeks to improve mood and mental acuity in comparison to receiving a placebo.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2025

open study

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is usually treated with antidepressant therapy (ADT); however, sometimes ADTs alone are not enough to adequately treat GAD. The purpose of this study is to assess how safe and effective ABBV-932 is when added to the antidepressant therapies in adult participants with GAD who have had an inadequate response ADTs. ABBV-932 is an investigational drug being developed for the adjunctive treatment of GAD. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive ABBV-932 or Placebo in addition to their currently prescribed ADTs. There is 1 in 3 chance of participants assigned to Placebo. Approximately 315 adult participants with GAD and inadequate response to ADTs will be enrolled in approximately 50 sites in the United States and Puerto Rico. Participants will receive oral capsules of ABBV-932 or matching placebo in addition to their prescribed ADT for 6 weeks and then will be followed for an additional 4 week follow-up period. There may be higher treatment burden for participants in this trial compared to their standard of care. Participants will attend regular visits during the study at a hospital or clinic. The effect of the treatment will be checked by medical assessments, blood tests, checking for side effects and completing questionnaires.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2025

open study

The goal of this study is to explore possible benefits of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). The main goals of the study are: - To investigate whether pre-survey measures of autonomic reactivity relate to the overall functioning of participants. - To examine the effects of PCIT To identify individual characteristics that influence the effects of PCIT. Participants will: - complete 5 online surveys (1x pre-PCIT, 3x during PCIT, and 1x post-PCIT) - complete the PCIT program

Type: Observational

Start Date: Feb 2025

open study

NRG-CC015 is a prospective, randomized phase III clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of two distinct digital approaches for delivering a mindfulness-based intervention: a live, instructor-led version delivered over Zoom (MAPs LO), and an app-based, self-paced version (MAPs App). Participants will include younger breast cancer survivors (BCS) who were diagnosed with breast cancer at or before age 50 years, have completed their primary cancer treatment (i.e., surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy) at least 6 months earlier, and report elevated depressive symptoms.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Jun 2025

open study

The goal of this clinical trial is to test how well psilocybin-assisted therapy works in treating people with depression. The main questions this study aims to answer are: - Does psilocybin with assisted therapy help improve symptoms for people with depression? - How long do the effects of this treatment last? Participants will: - Take part in a couple of screening and preparation visits. - Be given psilocybin in one or two treatment sessions. - Attend a series of follow-up sessions over the following year. - Complete forms and surveys to test how their symptoms have changed and what they thought of their experience. Researchers will also compare whether one treatment or two treatments help improve symptoms more for participants.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2024

open study

Bipolar I disorder (BP-I) is a common, chronic, and disabling mental illness with significant morbidity and mortality defined by episodes of mania and depression (or symptoms of both at once, known as mixed features). This prospective, observational study will examine effectiveness, functioning and quality of life outcomes in adult patients with BP-I experiencing a major depressive episode (with or without mixed features) requiring treatment and initiating treatment with cariprazine. It will examine outcomes of cariprazine treatment in a real-world setting in patients with BP-I commonly seen in clinical practices. Cariprazine (Vraylar) is a medication indicated in the United States and Canada to treat adult patients experiencing manic, mixed or depressive episodes associated with BP-I. This study plans to enroll approximately 170 adult patients with BP-I from the United States and Canada. Cariprazine should be prescribed by the physician under the usual and customary practice of physician prescription. The decision to initiate treatment with cariprazine should be made prior to, and independently from, the patient's decision to participate in the study. Participants will receive cariprazine as prescribed by their physician. Observational data will be collected during visits which should align to routine standard of care for a duration of up to 24 weeks.

Type: Observational

Start Date: Apr 2024

open study

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice for youth anxiety. However, up to 80% of youth with anxiety disorders do not access the services they need. Child CBT clinics nationwide have extremely long waits, on the order of 10-12 months. This leads to a vicious cycle, as children waiting for care experience worsening symptoms and decreased motivation, so that by the time they access care, their needs are more intensive and the treatment lasts longer and it takes longer for new children to be able to be assigned. Recently, single-session interventions (SSIs) have been developed that enable children to access CBT skills. The proposed randomized trial will evaluate the effects of a brief, web-based, self-guided SSI designed to reduce parent accommodation of children's anxiety, a parenting behavior that has been shown to maintain and worsen child anxiety. The main aim of the study is to examine whether the SSI reduces parent accommodation. As a secondary aim, the investigators will explore whether the SSI reduces children's anxiety symptoms over the first 6 months of CBT. The investigators will recruit parents of children who are on the waitlist to receive outpatient CBT. Results may suggest a promising approach to intervene with parents and children waiting to receive therapy.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Sep 2023

open study

The purpose of this study is to use smartphone technology to capture individual location emotional and cognitive data, to examine how real-world behaviors thoughts, emotions, and brain activity are related to one another.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Nov 2023

open study

In this research study, the investigators are examining how brain activity (electrical and blood flow) changes during tests of emotional processing, attention and memory in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner and outside the MRI using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Investigators are also using non-invasive brain stimulation to probe different parts of the brain and measuring brain activity (electrical and blood flow). Study 1 This study includes healthy participants and researchers hope this will help us develop improved brain-based treatments for emotional difficulties like depression. Study 2 This study includes participants with depression and researchers hope this will help us develop improved brain-based treatments for emotional difficulties like depression.

Type: Observational

Start Date: Feb 2024

open study

FOREST is a positive emotion skills program designed to target mental health and coping needs for frontline violence prevention workers at UCAN. Ten skills are taught over a period of nine months during existing meetings and wellness activities, as well as in online modules in UCAN's Learning Management System (LMS). Through infusing the FOREST skills throughout UCAN, we hope to inspire organizational culture change that will emphasize the importance of wellbeing and enhance resilience, therefore reducing burnout and turnover.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Mar 2025

open study

PTSD and substance use disorders (SUD) are two of the most common and debilitating mental health conditions afflicting military Veterans. PTSD and SUD frequently co-occur and are associated with poorer treatment outcomes. The investigators' team developed a trauma-focused intervention, Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and Substance Use Disorders Using Prolonged Exposure (COPE), which is identified by the VA as a gold standard of behavioral healthcare and was designated as a first-line treatment in the 2025 APA Clinical Practice Guideline for PTSD. However, a critical barrier to ensuring that Veterans with co-occurring PTSD/SUD receive evidence-based treatment is a lack of provider training. This project directly addresses this critical gap by developing a new web-based training program for providers (COPEWeb).

Type: Interventional

Start Date: May 2025

open study

Efficacy, Safety, and Tolerability of two administrations of COMP360 in participants with treatment-resistant depression (TRD)

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Feb 2023

open study

The aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of a single-session, digital intervention teaching the principle of practicing the opposite, when administered to youths on the waitlist for psychotherapy, with usual waitlist procedures as a control condition.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Sep 2022

open study

The proposed study seeks to evaluate effectiveness, implementation processes, and cost of MOTIVATE among older Veterans with chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and comorbid depressive symptoms.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Sep 2023

open study

The goal of this clinical trial is to use the validated PROMIS Emotional Distress - Anxiety - Short Form 8a and PROMIS Emotional Distress-Depression-Short Form pre-and post-intervention to establish a superior correlation between the auriculotherapy treatment and the reduction of perioperative anxiety. Subject population will include those having a partial or total nephrectomy for cancer. Drawing the role that auriculotherapy may play in reducing perioperative anxiety related requirement after surgery may also help in reducing the risk of opioid use disorders (OUD) since anxiety has been found to be a major risk factor for OUD in surgical patients. Therefore, this trial will also examine the effect of the auriculotherapy intervention in reducing opioid requirement after surgery.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2021

open study

This study looks to identify genes that may affect a person's chances of developing bipolar disorder (BP) and related conditions.

Type: Observational

Start Date: Aug 1994

open study

The gut microbiome has been shown to impact various facets of human health, including mental health. Studies have shown that populations with more agrarian lifestyles tend to have fewer chronic diseases and mental health issues than industrialized populations. A possible factor in these differences is the loss of co-evolved gut microbial taxa that has occurred with Westernization. This hypothesis, termed "Old Friends Hypothesis" suggests that the loss of certain gut microbes leads to immune dysregulation and increased chronic inflammation that contributes to development of cancers, cardiometabolic diseases and even neuroinflammation that can lead to negative behavioral and mental health outcomes. Other studies have shown that increasing the intake of plant foods may help increase diversity of the microbes in the gut and that this increased diversity could lead to better health outcomes in humans. The investigators propose to evaluate daily consumption of a drink consisting of a high diversity of plants (30 plant species) for four weeks on the diversity of the gut microbiome, biological signatures of inflammation, quality of life, sleep quality, and PTSD symptoms among persons with a diagnosis of PTSD. The investigators hypothesize that four weeks of daily consumption of this high plant diversity beverage (30 plant species) will increase gut microbiome ɑ-diversity, reduce markers of systemic inflammation, and improve PTSD symptom severity relative to daily consumption of a beverage containing only three plant species.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Jun 2025

open study

X-NOVA3 is a Phase 3, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the clinical efficacy, safety, and tolerability of azetukalner as a monotherapy in adult participants diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Jul 2025

open study

The Developing Resilience and Anxiety Management Through the Arts (DRAMA) Study examines the degree to which the arts can help to address stress, anxiety, and sad mood in children and adolescents. The researchers will pair theatrical improvisation exercises with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques versus improvisation exercises alone versus a social craft group on reducing elevated levels of anxiety and depression.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2025

open study

Anxiety disorders in children and adolescents are common and confer significant disability. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the recommended treatment for youth with anxiety, yet many families cannot access CBT due to cost, practicalities of attending in-person treatment sessions, and a shortage of trained providers, especially in rural areas. To combat these barriers, other treatment methods have been developed. Previous research has shown that family-based, internet-delivered CBT (iCBT) for anxiety and OCD in youth has shown a significant reduction in anxiety symptoms. Parent-coached exposure therapy (PCET) focuses entirely on teaching parents and youth together how to address anxiety through the completion of in-session parent-coached exposures and assigning parent-coached exposure as homework in between sessions. Although both iCBT and PCET show positive results in treating pediatric anxiety in comparison to standard-care CBT, little is known about the comparative efficacy of iCBT and PCET. This research is being done to understand the comparative effectiveness of two different types of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for treating anxiety or OCD in youth.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Jul 2025

open study

This study will examine the effect of a low dose of the 5HT2A agonist LSD (26 µg), compared to placebo, on acute and protracted mood states in individuals with depression. The investigators will assess the relationship between mood-related symptoms and EEG as a neurophysiological marker.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Jun 2025

open study

This study will evaluate the long-term safety and tolerability of NBI-1065845 as an adjunctive treatment in participants with MDD.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Apr 2025

open study

Many family and friend caregivers of persons living with dementia experience depression, stress, and other adverse health consequences due to the responsibilities of their caregiving role. These caregivers express a desire for education and support. The overarching goal of this project is to improve education and support for caregivers of persons living with dementia so that they can take better care of themselves and also their person living with dementia. Building Better Caregivers workshop is an online, 6-week, small group workshop for family caregivers of persons living with dementia that teaches them caregiving skills and how to manage difficult emotions, stress, and other challenging aspects of caregiving. Caregivers also receive support from other caregivers and two trained workshop facilitators and a workbook to keep. The workshop uses asynchronous delivery that allows caregivers to use materials at home when they have time day or night, self-pace their learning, and chat with other caregivers through threaded discussion board conversations. In this pilot embedded pragmatic clinical trial the investigators will evaluate the workshop among 108 caregivers who receive health care in urban areas of California and rural areas of New York. To achieve the project goals the investigators will (1) determine the feasibility of identifying, enrolling, and randomizing caregivers to a workshop group or wait-list group; (2) assess the feasibility of using electronic health record data as study outcomes, including depressive symptoms of caregivers and emergency room visits and hospitalizations of their patients with dementia; and (3) determine whether caregivers complete the workshop and think it is acceptable. If this pilot trial is successful, the investigators will have the information necessary to conduct a larger study among many additional caregivers with the long-term goal of improving their health and the well-being of their person with dementia.

Type: Interventional

Start Date: Mar 2025

open study