Indicated Prevention of Psychotic Disorders With Low-dose Lithium

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2006-12-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

This study investigates the neuroprotective properties of low-dose lithium in young individuals at ultra-high risk of developping a first psychotic episode. Fourty individuals having some symptoms of an emerging psychotic disorders (without meeting the threshold for a full-blown mental illness) will be treated with a low dose of lithium (about a third of the dose that is usually used to treat acute mania). We will assess the progression of the conditions of these individuals on a montly bases for a year. We will do behavioural, cognitive and imaging assessments prior start of the treatment, after three months and one year. We hope to demonstrate that low dose lithium will stop or even reverse the progression of disease. We expect that behavioral, cognitive and in vivo brain imaging parameters in those individuals treated with low dose lithium improve, compared to the monitoring group.

• Phase: Phase 4
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Melbourne Health
• Collaborator: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Treatments: Lithium Carbonate

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Attenuated psychotic symptoms

• Self-limited brief psychotic episode

• Family History of psychosis and decrease in functioning over last year

Exclusion Criteria:

• Organic causes of subthreshold psychotic symptoms (eg. epilepsy)

• More than one week of neuroleptic treatment