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ABSTRACT: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a severe mental illness with high risk of suicidality. Antidepressant treatment alone is not sufficient for the acute management of risk-taking symptoms of depression. This pilot study was designed to investigate the efficacy of risperidone augmentation to antidepressants in the acute management of suicidality and other core symptoms in MDD with suicidality.
Twenty-four adult men and women diagnosed with MDD (DSM-IV), having a depressive episode with suicidality despite taking an antidepressant, were enrolled in an 8-week double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive risperidone (0.25-2 mg/day) or placebo while continuing on their antidepressant therapy. Clinical efficacy in suicidality, depressive symptoms, and impulsivity were assessed after treatment with study drugs for 4 days, weekly for 4 weeks, then every other week for 4 weeks. Adverse events were also recorded at each visit. The study was conducted from June 2004 to April 2007.
Risperidone significantly reduced suicidal ideations in MDD patients, and the overall effect of risperidone appeared to be superior to placebo. The effect of risperidone was rapid, with onset at 2 weeks' treatment, and was sustained along the course of 8 weeks' treatment. Furthermore, risperidone demonstrated superiority to placebo in improving other symptoms related to suicidality and having better trial completion rate, and the low dose risperidone was well tolerated by subjects in this study.
Data from this pilot study suggest that risperidone is beneficial as an augmenting treatment in MDD patients who have developed high-risk suicidal ideation during a depressive episode. The antisuicidality effect of risperidone is especially valuable in the acute management of severe depressive symptoms. Although the pilot study is limited by small sample size, the promising results warrant further larger scale investigation in the efficacy of atypical antipsychotics in the treatment of severe depression with suicidality.
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00167154.
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 08/2008; 69(8):1228-336. · 5.80 Impact Factor
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Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 07/2008; 28(3):345-7. · 4.10 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Bipolar disorder has been linked to alterations in the multifunctional enzyme glycogen synthase kinase-3beta (GSK3beta). The mood stabilizer lithium inhibits GSK3beta in vitro and in mouse brain, and this is currently the strongest known potential therapeutic target of lithium. We tested whether lithium modified GSK3beta in vivo or in vitro in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy control and bipolar disorder subjects.
The PBMCs were obtained from 23 healthy control subjects, 9 bipolar subjects currently treated with lithium, and 13 lithium-free bipolar subjects. Immunoblot analyses were used to measure the inhibited, serine9-phosphorylated GSK3beta.
The level of phospho-Ser9-GSK3beta in PBMCs was regulated by agents that modified kinases and phosphatases acting on GSK3beta and was increased by in vitro lithium treatment. More important, phospho-Ser9-GSK3beta levels were eightfold higher in PBMCs from lithium-treated bipolar than healthy control subjects.
Signaling pathways regulating serine9-phosphorylation of GSK3beta can be studied in human PBMCs. Both in vitro and in vivo therapeutic lithium treatment is associated with a large increase in phospho-Ser9-GSK3beta in PBMCs. Therefore, the inhibitory serine9-phosphorylation of GSK3beta in human PBMCs may provide a biochemical marker to evaluate the association between GSK3beta inhibition and therapeutic responses to lithium treatment.
Biological Psychiatry 02/2007; 61(2):216-22. · 8.28 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Although serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) are the first-line treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), approximately half of patients with OCD do not respond adequately to SRI monotherapy. Patients with predominant obsessions are common in OCD and are often difficult to treat, necessitating adjunctive treatment.
This was a 9-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study comparing the benefits of 2-week adjunctive treatments with risperidone, haloperidol, and placebo in patients with OCD (DSM-IV criteria) who continued to have severe symptoms despite taking a stable dose of an SRI. Eligible patients must have been receiving a therapeutic dose of an SRI for at least 12 weeks and at the screening visit had a score > or = 10 on items 1-5 (obsession) and a total score > or = 16 on the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS). Data were collected from January 1999 through April 2002.
Sixteen patients were enrolled and 12 completed the study. On the YBOCS, both risperidone and haloperidol significantly reduced obsession (p < .05) when compared with placebo. There was a tendency that haloperidol, and to a lesser degree risperidone, also reduced the compulsion and the total YBOCS scores. These results were accompanied by a reduction in the Hopkins Symptom Checklist 90-revised (SCL-90R) anxiety scale score. According to the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, the SCL-90R depression scale, and the Profile of Mood States, risperidone, but not halo-peridol, also improved depressed mood. Neither risperidone nor haloperidol changed neurocogni-tive function during the 2-week treatment. All 12 patients completed the 2-week risperidone treatment, but 5 of the 12 terminated haloperidol treatment early owing to intolerable side effects.
Adjunctive risperidone improved obsessions and depressed mood and was well tolerated in patients with SRI-refractory OCD.
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 07/2005; 66(6):736-43. · 5.80 Impact Factor
