Current Psychosis Research Studies

Clozapine is a highly effective treatment for psychotic disorders, but we do not know at this time which patients best respond to this treatment. This study seeks to determine if there are differences as seen in tests of cognition and brain function in individuals treated with clozapine or risperidone. The results of this study will help doctors in choosing the right medications.

InVEST is a school and work coaching program designed to help teens meet their school and work goals. In InVEST, teens can learn different skills and strategies that may help them meet their goals by developing organization skills and strategies to manage stress and procrastination.

Sessions begin by assessing the teen's goals, noting any difficulties with procrastinating, dealing with stress, or organizing their time. Sessions are then based on the specific needs of each teen. Our coach communicates and collaborates with the client's individual therapist, school counselor, and family to build a team to support the teen to achieve these goals.

The Learn, Assess, Manage, Prevent (LAMP) Study aims to determine whether data that your phone and smart watch automatically collects may one day in the future provide useful information about understanding depression or schizophrenia and psychosis.

The apps can run on your smartphone and will collect GPS data (where you are), anonymized call and text messages logs, information on when your phone is off/on, and also asks you to complete surveys about your mood, sleep, anxiety, and symptoms of schizophrenia or depression. This app will always be collecting data, even if you do not notice it doing so.

SPARCS, a National Institute of Mental Health funded research project, studies people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, first-degree relatives of people with psychotic disorders (siblings, parents or children), and healthy volunteers, to investigate whether there are differences in brain activity during sleep and whether these differences affect memory and learning.

The Center for Sleep and Cognition (CfSC) at BIDMC is working with patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and healthy control participants in a study exploring the ability of light electrical stimulation directed to the scalp during a nap to augment sleep.

Participants in this study track their sleep at home and then come into the lab to participate in three afternoon nap sessions (one acclimation nap; two experimental naps) in the CfSC at BIDMC, with at least a two-week break between the two experimental naps. During one of the naps, light stimulation is applied to the frontal regions of the participant's head using transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) aimed at boosting certain brainwave patterns typically experienced during sleep.

Participants are also completing measures of cognitive and emotional processing before and after the naps to determine if this stimulated sleep benefits performance.

The TMS Study looks at the potential effects of using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to see if this improves the symptoms of people with schizophrenia. TMS is noninvasive and stimulates the brain using a magnetic field to cause a change in the activity in the brain. The magnetic field is produced by a coil that is held next to your scalp.

Half of participants receive the TMS treatment while the other half receive a sham treatment. A sham treatment looks and feels like the real TMS, but is not real. Each participant has a 50% (1 in 2) chance of being placed in either group. The study takes approximately 3 weeks.

Understanding Prodromes & Lowering Risk in Family Therapy (UPLIFT) is a family treatment program for teens and young adults who have experienced changes in their thinking, mood and daily functioning that suggest they might be at clinical high risk for developing psychosis. We are a network of seven university clinics conducting research on effective treatments for youth experiencing these mental health challenges.