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RecruitingNCT04131829Updated Sep 22, 2026

Brain Network Changes Accompanying and Predicting Responses to Pharmacotherapy in OCD

A Phase 1/2 interventional study of Fluoxetine - immediate treatment and Fluoxetine - delayed treatment in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, sponsored by Yale University. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 65 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-09-22.

Sponsored by Yale University · Phase 1/2, Interventional, and Basic science

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Oct 2019; still recruiting 7 years later.
Phase
Phase 1/2
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
100
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 65 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The proposed randomized, double-blind research study will use functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging using state-of-the-art HCP acquisition protocols and analytic pipelines, to identify predictors and correlates of response to an accepted first-line pharmacological treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Read the detailed description

The proposed study intends to recruit 2 groups:

  1. Matched healthy control participants will be imaged with one fMRI at baseline as a no-treatment comparison group; and
  2. a randomized, double-blind group of unmedicated OCD participants who will be assigned to begin either immediate or placebo-delayed treatment, and who will be imaged with fMRIs at baseline and over the course of treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), fluoxetine.

Hypothesis-driven analyses and exploratory analyses will be performed in parallel.

This study will address the following Specific Aims:

  1. Identification of neural dysconnectivity associated with OCD symptomatology.
  2. Characterizing neural markers of clinical response to SSRI pharmacotherapy.
  3. Mapping neural predictors of clinical response to pharmacotherapy.
02

Conditions studied

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
03

In context

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

635 studies on the registry are indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; 166 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 100 is above the median of 45 across 520 interventional studies indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Browse Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder studies →

Lead sponsor

Yale University is the lead sponsor of 1,770 studies on the registry; 294 are open to participants now.

Of its 221 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 129 (58%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 65 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Inclusion criteria for all groups will include: (i) Adults, Men and women will be included, in a 1:1 ratio; and efforts will be made to recruit racial and ethnic subgroups. Groups will be further matched on age, handedness; and later, in analysis, on educational status and smoking history.

(ii) signed , approved by the Yale Human Investigations Committee; and (iii) ability and willingness to participate in all study procedures, including clinical assessments and fMRI scans.

  • Additional inclusion criteria:
  • OCD Participants:

    (i) a DSM diagnosis of OCD, established as detailed above; (ii) a baseline Y-BOCS of ≥16; (iii) no current psychoactive medication, with the exception of the occasional use of a PRN medication for sleep; (iv) treatment seeking, and clinically appropriate for fluoxetine pharmacotherapy; (v) for women of , not pregnant or intending to become pregnant, and willing to use reliable over the course of the study, either prescribed contraceptive (oral contraceptive, injectable, or implant) or one barrier method (e.g. diaphragm with spermicide, intrauterine device, cervical cap). Women of childbearing potential must have a negative serum pregnancy test at screening and negative urine pregnancy tests at the study baseline and on each scan day appointment prior to the MRI scan.

  • Healthy Control Participants:

    (i) no current DSM diagnosis (by clinician interview confirmed by SCID or MINI); (ii) no documented or clinically suspected family history in a first- or second- degree relative of OCD, Tourette syndrome, hoarding disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, or a compulsive grooming disorder.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Exclusion criteria for all groups will include:

    (i) any unstable medical, psychiatric, or neurological condition (including active or otherwise problematic suicidality) that may necessitate urgent treatment; (ii) any substance use disorder within the past 6 months; (iii) use of psychotropic medications within the past 8 weeks, with the exception of occasional use of a sleep aid or analgesic; (iv) use of an as-needed sleep aid or prescription analgesic within 3 days of the scan; (v) any history of a primary psychotic disorder or of mania; (vi) any evidence of substance use on urine toxicology testing; (vii) any major neurological disease or history of major head trauma, including concussion with extended loss of consciousness; (viii) pregnancy; (ix) any metal in the body or other to MRI scanning; (x) severe claustrophobia, back pain, or other condition that may make an extended MR scan difficult or lead to excessive movement during the scan.

  • Additional exclusion criteria:
  • OCD Participants:

    (i) past allergy or adverse reaction to fluoxetine or another SSRI, or other clinical contraindication to fluoxetine pharmacotherapy; (ii) documented nonresponse to a past trial of fluoxetine of appropriate dose (≥40 mg/dy) and duration (≥12 weeks).

(iii) Patients taking Coumadin or Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) will be excluded from the study.

Terms in these criteria, in plain language(4)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

Childbearing potential

Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).

Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

Contraindication

A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1 / Phase 2
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Double (Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
100 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • No intervention
    Healthy Controls

    The healthy control group will be an age matched sample of unmedicated healthy adults who will be recruited and imaged once at baseline and the data compared with that of OCD subjects at baseline.

  • Experimental
    OCD Group

    The OCD group will comprise of unmedicated individuals with clinically significant OCD symptoms. OCD Subjects will be randomized, double-blind, to receive immediate or delayed (by 6 weeks as a placebo lead-in) pharmacotherapy.

    Drug: Fluoxetine - immediate treatment · Drug: Fluoxetine - delayed treatment

Interventions

  • DrugFluoxetine - immediate treatment

    Following the Baseline assessment, OCD subjects will be randomized to receive either immediate fluoxetine monotherapy or delayed fluoxetine, after a 6-week placebo lead-in.

    Also known as: fluoxetine, prozac

  • DrugFluoxetine - delayed treatment

    Following the Baseline assessment, OCD subjects will be randomized to receive either immediate fluoxetine monotherapy or delayed fluoxetine, after a 6-week placebo lead-in.

    Also known as: fluoxetine, prozac

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Obsessive-compulsive severity change

    Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS);72,73 -This is a checklist and Clinician administered - 10 item severity scale, from none to extreme. Total severity score range is 0 to 40. This will be presented as % improvement in Y-BOCS as a continuous measure of treatment response, rather than an artificially dichotomized measure of 'response', in all analyses. This the primary outcome measure of change across the study treatment and scans.

    Time frame: 18 weeks

Secondary outcomes

  1. Tic severity change

    Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS) will be used to measure Tic severity. It is a clinician administered instrument with a score from 0 to 25- 25 being the most severe.

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  2. Beck Depression Inventory-II

    Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II);82 21 items to assess intensity of depression.

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  3. Anxiety

    Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI);83 21 item self report on a 4 point Likert scale - 0 (not at all) to 3 (severely).

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  4. Obsessive-compulsive concerns

    Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS);84 20 questions, asks about 4 categories of obsessive-compulsive concerns (each consists of 5 items scored on a Likert scale of 0-no symptoms to 4 - extreme symptoms) over the previous month.

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  5. Magical ideation

    Magical Ideation Scale (MIS);86 30 item true / false scale, assessing erroneous beliefs based on magical thinking.

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  6. Sensory phenomena

    University of São Paulo Sensory Phenomena Scale (USP-SPS);87

    Time frame: 18 weeks

  7. "Not Just Right" experiences and sensations in OCD

    Not Just Right Experiences Questionnaire Revised (INC).88 19 Questions: Rate 10 NJR Experiences; Choose most recent one; Identify how long ago it occurred; then complete 7 dimensional ratings of that NJRE: frequency, intensity, immediate distress, delayed distress, rumination, urge to respond, and responsibility to do something about the NJRE, from 1 (absence) to 7 (extreme level /or within the past day).

    Time frame: 18 weeks

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • Yale OCD Research Clinic - CMHC/CNRU, 34 Park ST
    New Haven, Connecticut 06519, United States
    Recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reached

Started Oct 2019 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Sep 2027, 95 months after the start.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Oct 16, 2019
First posted
Oct 18, 2019
StartActual
Oct 14, 2019
Primary completionEst.
Sep 2027
CompletionEst.
Sep 2027
Last update
Sep 22, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Sep 22, 2026, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04131829
Lead sponsor
Yale University
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Oct 18, 2019
Start date
Oct 14, 2019
Primary completion
Sep 2027 (estimated)
Completion
Sep 2027 (estimated)
Last update
Sep 22, 2026

Study contacts

Yale OCD Research Clinic
Contact
ocd.research@yale.edu
1-855-623-9253
Stephen Kichuk, MPH
Contact
stephen.kichuk@yale.edu
203-974-7534
Christopher Pittenger, MD, PhD
principal investigator · Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Yale OCD Research Clinic

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
Yes
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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