Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among adolescents in the United States. The 'Acute Course of Ketamine Versus Midazolam for Recurrence of Suicidality in Adolescents' (TASK), a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, was designed to examine the signal for efficacy of ketamine, compared to midazolam (active control), in reducing 1) repeat suicidal events, 2) implicit cognition,...
Psychological distress, encompassing PTSD, depression, and anxiety-is highly prevalent among Veterans receiving care in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) primary care settings, yet it frequently goes untreated or undertreated. Traditional psychotherapies and psychiatric medications are often misaligned with Veterans' preferences for self-reliance, low-stigma formats, and skill-based...
Pregnancy and childbirth represent a major transition into motherhood, marked by psychosocial changes that may increase women's vulnerability to mental health difficulties such as prenatal depression, anxiety, or PTSD, in addition to physical pain. These difficulties can negatively impact maternal well-being, the mother-infant relationship, and child development. Prenatal mindfulness-based...
Ketamine is a powerful and rapid-acting antidepressant but has no regulatory authorization for any psychiatric illness. The S-enantiomer of ketamine, esketamine, was approved by the FDA in 2019 as adjunctive therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Substantial controversy exists as to whether there is a significant clinical difference between intravenous (IV) ketamine racemate and intranasal...
Tourette Syndrome and persistent tic disorders (collectively, TS) are characterized by involuntary motor and/or vocal tics that onset in childhood. Existing evidence-based treatments-including behavior therapy and pharmacotherapy-are often only partially effective, associated with burdensome side effects, and/or inaccessible. The current paper describes a randomized controlled trial designed to...
Prolonged exposure (PE) therapy is effective for PTSD, yet dropout and partial response remain concerning. Preclinical and human studies suggest Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) enhances fear extinction and recall through brain cannabinoid receptor activation in fear processing. Examine whether synthetic THC (dronabinol) augments PE effectiveness. Double-blind, placebo-controlled, trial with...
Black women in the U.S. disproportionately suffer from insomnia and related cardiometabolic health burdens. However, there is a lack of sleep intervention and implementation research specifically targeting Black women. The aim of this study is to co-design and evaluate equity-focused, community-engaged implementation strategies for an online, group-based mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia...
Suicide risk and chronic pain are significant public health problems affecting veterans at a disproportionally high rate. There is a dearth of interventions directly targeting both chronic pain and suicide risk. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Pain and Suicide (MBCT-P/S) integrates components from MBCT-Pain and MBCT-Suicide, both of which demonstrate promising effects on their...
Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and urban/rural disparities in mental, emotional, behavioral, and physical health are evident among U.S. preschoolers. To reduce these disparities, we plan to test our Food-Body-Mind intervention with preschoolers from racially/ethnically diverse, low-income, urban, and rural areas. The aims of the study are to determine the effects of the intervention on improving...
Depression in old age is a public health concern contributing to individual and societal burdens. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) have shown promise in reducing depressive symptoms. However, time commitments associated with these interventions could pose challenges to older adults. To address this, we propose a briefer mindfulness-based...
Contemporary Clinical TrialsMay 1, 2025Juliette Faure-De Baets, Jeremy Besnard, Frédéric Banville et al.3 citations
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease primarily affecting motor neurons but also leading to significant non-motor symptoms, including cognitive impairments, anxiety, depression, and behavioral changes, which severely impact quality of life. While mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have shown promise in alleviating psychological distress, their accessibility is...
Suicide is a leading cause of death in young persons. While ketamine has demonstrated rapid anti-suicidal effects, its safety and efficacy in youth has not been fully investigated. The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), a suicide-focused treatment shown to decrease suicidal ideation and symptom distress, has never been studied in combination with ketamine. This study...
Symptoms of depression and anxiety are prevalent among adults with chronic health conditions, contributing to reduced quality of life, morbidity, and mortality. Mind-body wellness interventions (i.e. psychology programming, mindful movement, breathwork, meditation) may impact mental health symptoms, with online delivery offering access and scalability. Whether online mind-body wellness...
The 2023 VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of PTSD recommends individual, manualized trauma-focused such as Prolonged Exposure (PE) over pharmacologic interventions for the primary treatment of PTSD. Unfortunately, clinical trials of trauma-based therapies in the military and veteran population showed that 30% to 50% of patients did not demonstrate clinically meaningful...
Elevated depression symptoms have been associated with higher insulin resistance in adolescents, and consequently, greater risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D). Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) may be suited for adolescents at risk for T2D given its potential to decrease depression and improve stress-related behavior/physiology underpinning insulin resistance. To prepare for a future multisite...
Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are highly prevalent, and co-occurring among post-9/11 veterans. Mobile health (mHealth) applications, specifically those focused on mindfulness-based techniques, may be an effective avenue to intervene with veterans who cannot or will not seek care at traditional in-person settings. Thus, to address areas of...
Although active surveillance (AS) is an increasingly adopted treatment paradigm for management of very low risk prostate cancer, many men and their partners face a variety of AS-related psychosocial stressors. Stressors may include anxiety and fear of progression, which may negatively affect short- and long-term psychosocial adjustment and influence early withdrawal from AS in order to seek...
Several lines of evidence suggest that classic psychedelics (5-HT2A receptor agonists or partial agonists) such as psilocybin might facilitate behavior change in individuals with substance use disorders. We conducted a multi-site, double-blind, randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the effects of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in alcohol-dependent volunteers. In addition to a...
Migraine is a debilitating disorder with limited pharmacological options. Many migraine medications can have intolerable side effects leading patients to seek complementary and integrative health (CIM) approaches for treatment. One option that is growing in popularity and evidence is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based therapy. The purpose of this paper is to describe...
A majority of the 34 million people who currently smoke cigarettes report wanting to quit smoking yet most attempts to quit end in relapse. A mindfulness based intervention (MBI) is an intervention package used to reinforce an individual's practice of mindfulness meditation in daily life. MBIs delivered by phone app offer daily prompts to guide bouts of mindfulness meditation, that is,...
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based psychosocial intervention for chronic pain; however, in its present form ACT produces modest improvements in function and is no more effective than cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the current gold standard. This protocol paper describes the Acting with Mindfulness for Pain (AMP) protocol, which emphasizes and integrates formal...
More than 50 million people worldwide live with a dementia, and most are cared for by family members. Family caregivers often experience chronic stress and insomnia, resulting in decreased mental and physical health. Accessibility of in-person stress reduction therapy is limited due to caregiver time constraints and distance from therapy sites. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) provides...
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an evidence-based non-pharmacological approach for chronic low back pain (cLBP), yet it is not readily available or reimbursable within primary care clinics. Primary care providers (PCPs) who wish to avoid prescribing opioids and other medications typically have few options for their cLBP patients. We present the protocol of a pragmatic clinical...
The combined use of cigarettes and alcohol is associated with an increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Yet, efficacious interventions that address both behaviors concurrently are lacking. Smoking cessation and alcohol modification not only garner health benefits, but there is also value in addressing alcohol use in the context of smoking cessation to reduce the risk for smoking relapse. In...
Anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and agoraphobia) are common, distressing, and impairing. While pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are first-line treatment strategies for anxiety disorders, many patients are reluctant to take psychiatric medication, and many prefer to avoid any kind of mental health treatment due to stigma or distrust of...