Clinical trials

Using a randomized controlled design, the project aims to test if cognitive behavioral therapy interventions specifically targeting sleep disorders can significantly lessen the burden of the disrupted sleep in patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS) and by proxy lead to a reduction in psychotic symptoms and improvement in quality of life. We are including treatment-resistant patients with schizophrenia other nonorganic and chronic psychoses and in addition meeting the criteria of a sleep or circadian disorder. Included patients will be block randomized to either 8-10 sessions of CBT-I (active treatment) with a specific focus on sleep or 8-10 sessions of regularCBT with a specific focus on patients' psychopathology (treatment as usual) approx.1 session/week. After 12 weeks the full battery of assessments will be repeated forboth groups. Primary analyses will be to identify group-difference in changes using repeated measure ANOVA.

The outline of the current project is to establish a cohort of patients with treatment refractory schizophrenia eligible for clozapine, to identify clinical and biological characteristics of clozapine responding patients. Patients will be offered treatment with clozapine according to national clinical guidelines. Before clozapine is initiated, patients will be offered a thoroughly neurobiological examination, and re-examination will be carried out after 12 weeks of treatment. The primary focus of the examinations will be immunological markers and autoantibodies in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid, permeability of the blood-brain barrier and magnetic resonance imaging of structural, neurochemical and functional brain changes.