Clinical trials

This study aims to validate the therapeutic efficacy and safety of bright light therapy (BLT) in ameliorating cognitive impairment (CI) in major depressive disorder (MDD), characterize the functional and structural features of the hippocampus (HPC)-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) neural circuitry in MDD participants with CI and examine the mediating effect of the HPC-dlPFC neural circuit on CI induced by BLT treatment in MDD participants. MDD participants will be required to only receive selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as monotherapy for at least four weeks, or medication-free status before enrollment. Eligible participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group will receive the intervention of BLT, and the control group will receive the intervention of dim red light (DRL). The intervention will last for four weeks, 6 days per week, with 40 minutes each day between 7 am and 10 am. The MDD participants will be followed once in the end of each week during the 4-week intervention and in the end of the 4th week after intervention. Demographic information will be collected at baseline; cognitive function will be evaluated at baseline, weeks 2, 4, and 8 after intervention beginning; and other symptoms such as depression, anxiety and sleep were assessed at baseline, weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 after intervention beginning. Moreover, structural and functional MRI scans will be made at baseline and post-intervention. During the intervention, MDD participants will be required to keep a record of daily light exposure duration and complete the daily sleep diary as well.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a chronic disease characterized by a high prevalence, low cure rate, and significant disability. Globally, depression is recognized as the leading cause of illness and disability among children and adolescents. Bright light therapy (BLT) has been established as an effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder and has demonstrated considerable efficacy in adult patients with MDD. However, its application in adolescent patients with MDD remains largely unexplored. The aim of this clinical trial is to evaluate the clinical efficacy, onset time, safety, and applicability of BLT in adolescents with MDD and to explore the potential neural mechanisms by which BLT enhances emotional and cognitive function in this population. This is a multicenter, randomized, controlled, double-blind study. It will involve adolescents aged 13 to 17 who are either untreated or have been stable on medication for at least one week. Adolescents with MDD will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: a high-intensity bright white light intervention group, a medium-intensity bright white light intervention group, and a placebo control group receiving dim red light. Each group will undergo four weeks of light exposure, six days per week, for 40 minutes daily between 6:30 and 10:00 AM. During the light exposure period, follow-up assessments will be conducted every weekend, and participants will be followed for two weeks after the completion of light exposure.The primary outcome will be the change in total scores on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD-17) from baseline to week 4. Secondary outcomes will include response and remission rates, time to onset, maintenance of efficacy, self-reported depressive symptoms, sleep quality, cognitive function, anxiety, irritability, suicidal ideation, non-suicidal self-injury, self-efficacy, and the overall safety profile of BLT. Additionally, the study will include healthy adolescent controls and collect functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) from both the adolescent participants with major depressive disorder and the healthy controls at baseline. The fNIRS and MRI data will also be collected from the adolescent participants with MDD at the end of the intervention, in order to investigate the potential neural mechanisms by which light therapy alleviates depressive symptoms in adolescents.

To evaluate if evidence-based digital cognitive behaviour therapy for adolescents is an efficacious treatment when delivered as an adjunctive treatment to treatment as usual, compared to a control group consisting of treatment as usual.

\# Brief Summary (English Version) Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) is a hyperkinetic movement disorder induced by long-term use of dopamine receptor blockers and related drugs. Characterized by involuntary spasms or choreiform movements involving the tongue, lower face, jaw, and limbs (persisting for at least several weeks), TD causes irreversible neurological damage that persists even after discontinuing the causative drugs, significantly impairing patients' functional outcomes. rTMS is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique: time-varying currents in a coil generate magnetic fields that penetrate the scalp and skull to act on brain neurons, inducing depolarization, neural network activation, neurotransmitter release, metabolic changes, and gene expression, thereby producing physiological effects \[9\]. In recent years, rTMS has gained attention for treating movement disorders (e.g., Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease, dystonia, essential tremor, Huntington's disease) due to its non-invasiveness, high safety, and repeatability. Studies have reported that rTMS can significantly improve motor symptoms in TD patients \[10, 11\]; however, existing research is limited by small sample sizes, conventional treatment parameters, large inter-individual variability, and unclear long-term efficacy. rTMS efficacy in TD is strongly influenced by parameters including stimulation targets, localization methods, sequences, and cycles. Optical navigation (using personalized MRI) is the most accurate and yields the best therapeutic effects, compared to manual localization or positioning caps . Regarding stimulation sequences, 1Hz and 20Hz rTMS have shown efficacy but with short-lived effects. Continuous theta-Burst Stimulation (cTBS)-a specialized rTMS mode that delivers rapid pulse trains mimicking endogenous theta-wave bursts-provides higher therapeutic doses in less time, enabling more durable efficacy and effectively reducing motor cortex excitability . Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of cTBS (under precise localization) on improving motor symptoms in patients with TD.

It is known that alcohol consumption can lead to cognitive impairment and dysregulation of inflammatory responses. A preliminary randomized controlled trial conducted by our research team has suggested that nitrate may improve cognition in hospitalized patients with alcohol dependence. To further expand the population and applicability, this study aims to explore the effects of nitrate on cognition in a real-world population of heavy drinkers. The researchers have designed a two-stage clinical trial: the first stage involves the analysis of existing data, and the second stage will recruit 43-54 new participants for a 14-day dietary inorganic nitrate (nitrate-rich beetroot juice, \~750 mg NO3- /d) intervention.

This study evaluates the safety and efficacy of low-dose buprenorphine in patients with ASD by using standard ASD symptom assessment methods (e.g., SRS-2 and ABC) as well as AI-assisted analyses utilizing exploratory gaze patterns in conjunction with fMRI and electroencephalogram measurements to assess changes in brain functional status.