STRATA 2, version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
STRATA 2: Biological effects of antipsychotic treatment.
IRAS ID
235490
Contact name
James H MacCabe
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
KCL
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, days
Research summary
People with schizophrenia suffer from various symptoms, including hallucinations (such as hearing voices), delusions (false beliefs), thought disorder (thoughts not flowing in a logical way), lack of motivation and withdrawal from social contact. Currently, antipsychotic medication is the only way to improve those symptoms. Antipsychotics are thought to work by reducing a chemical in the brain – called dopamine – which is often too high in patients. Most patients respond to their antipsychotic treatment, but around 30% of patients fail to improve. Those patients then often receive a different drug called clozapine which has several side effects and requires regular blood tests, so people don't like taking it. It's also ineffective in some patients. The result is that there are many schizophrenia patients who spend too much time taking medicines that don't work for them and this has negative effects on their mental health, well-being and quality of life, whilst the costs of ineffective treatment is a huge financial burden to the National Health Service (NHS).
We’re doing this study to better understand why some people respond to their antipsychotic medication, whilst others don’t. We think the different responses are linked to 2 chemicals in the brain – one is dopamine and the other one is called glutamate. Recent evidence suggests that patients who don’t respond to their medication have normal levels of dopamine, but abnormal levels of glutamate causing the same schizophrenia symptoms.
We aim to generate and use data from brain imaging techniques, blood analyses and psychiatric symptom assessments to develop a method that allows us to predict how effective different medicines are likely to be, or develop more effective medicines for treating schizophrenia with fewer side effects.
The study will be done at 8 research sites in the United Kingdom.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
17/NI/0209
Date of REC Opinion
4 Dec 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion