An interventional study of Neurofeedback processing speed training and Active control in Prodromal Schizophrenia, sponsored by Hartford Hospital. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 12 Years to 25 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2024-02-28.
Sponsored by Hartford Hospital · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
Young people who are at great risk for developing psychosis have cognitive deficits which are strongly related to functioning in the community. This study looks to target a specific cognitive skill called processing speed to see if improving the ability to process information in a timely manner will improve social function in adolescents and young adults at risk for developing schizophrenia. Half will receive neurofeedback cognitive training targeting processing speed while the other half will receive an active control.
Processing speed deficits are characteristic of schizophrenia and related to its functional impairment, including in its nascent stages, during a putatively prodromal or clinical high risk period. These cognitive deficits have proven relatively refractory to pharmacologic strategies, though the deficits can be improved with cognitive remediation programs in schizophrenia. The cognitive gains can then generalize to functional improvement, particularly early in the course of illness (i.e. first episode psychosis). Although processing speed deficits are also prevalent in young people identified as at clinical high risk for psychosis (i.e. "psychosis risk syndrome"), and related to their concurrent impaired function and predictive of later psychosis (onset of which occurs in 20-25% of clinical high risk cohorts), little research has focused on how to remediate these deficits in clinical high risk patients. Remediating core cognitive deficits in clinical high risk patients could plausibly address present functional impairment in these young people and moderate illness progression. The investigators propose to conduct a double-blind randomized trial in 105 clinical high risk patients to examine a focal processing speed training program versus an active control in terms of improvement in processing speed and social function, and reduction in prodromal symptom severity.
Exclusion Criteria:
Neurofeedback processing speed training
Behavioral: Neurofeedback processing speed training
Computer games
Behavioral: Active control
Processing speed training on tablets that incorporates changes in pupil size to titrate the learning algorithm
Commercially available games on tablet
Change on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale Processing Speed Index
Change on a paper and pencil test of processing speed
Time frame: Baseline, 1 month, 2 month, 6 month
This study is completed, as verified in Feb 2024. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Hartford Hospital