This investigation will explore the impact of 8 weeks of citicoline treatment on cognitive function, clinical state and substance use in 40 individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a major cause of death and disability within the United States. Approximately 1.4 million individuals sustain a TBI each year, and currently, more than 5.3 million Americans or 3% of the general population live with disabilities associated with a TBI, resulting in enormous financial, physical and psychosocial burdens to the patients, their families and society. The issue of TBI has never been more salient, as it is now labeled the "signature wound" of the current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Patients with mTBI often experience a variety of symptoms including headache, dizziness, fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, insomnia, reduced alcohol tolerance, and problems with cognitive function. In acute stages, cognitive deficits may affect multiple domains and be severe enough to interfere with everyday activities. The proposed investigation will explore the impact of 8 weeks of citicoline treatment on cognitive function, clinical state and substance use in 40 individuals with mTBI. The investigators hypothesize that individuals with mTBI who receive citicoline will demonstrate improvements in cognitive performance relative to their own pre-treatment levels as well as to those randomized to placebo. Specifically, the investigators expect the greatest improvement on frontal/executive measures following treatment with citicoline. In addition, the investigators also hypothesize that 8 weeks of treatment with citicoline will result in a reduction of comorbid substance use and improvements in clinical state measures relative to both pre-treatment levels and those randomized to receive placebo. Given the relationship between cognitive function and clinical state, the investigators expect a primary improvement in cognitive function will likely precede the expected improvement of mTBI-related symptoms.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
2,000mg/day of citicoline taken as twice daily unit doses of 1,000 mg for the 8-week period of the clinical trial
Placebo arm of single-blind study
McLean Hospital Brain Imaging Center
Belmont, Massachusetts, United States
Neurocognitive Assessment Changes with Citicoline Treatment
4-Subtest Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) at the baseline visit only. Measures to be administered at baseline and both follow-up visits: Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R), Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R), Logical Memory (LM) Subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) and Sullivan Multiple Versions, Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure (Rey-O), Stroop Color-Word Test, Trailmaking Test A \& B, Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), Digit Span subtest of the WAIS-R, Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST), Go/No Go Test, Time Estimation Task (TET), and Facial Expressions of Emotion-Stimuli and Tests (FEEST).
Time frame: At baseline and at treatment week 4 and week 8
Clinical State Assessment Changes with Citicoline Treatment
Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), Hamilton Anxiety Scales (HAM-A), Positive \& Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), Profile of Mood States (POMS), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS), UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS-P), Impulsiveness-Venturesomeness-Empathy Scale (IVE), State/Trait Inventory (STAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test-Revised (CUDIT-R), National Center for PTSD 17-item checklist (PCL), Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory (NSI), Combat Exposure Scale (CES), \& Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS).
Time frame: Weekly assessment & biweekly clinical scales for 8 weeks
Functional MRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Changes with Citicoline Treatment
All functional MR imaging (fMRI) will be performed on the 3 Tesla (3T) scanner retrofitted with a whole body echo-planar coil with a TIM upgrade. The challenge paradigms will be a Masked Affect paradigm, the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT), and a Trauma-Related Emotional Counting Stroop. In addition, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) will be acquired to assess white matter microstructure integrity by measuring fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD).
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Time frame: At baseline and at treatment week 8
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Changes with Citicoline Treatment
Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) will be acquired at 3 Tesla using both single voxel and chemical shift imaging (CSI) techniques in order to assess brain metabolite levels pre and post treatment.
Time frame: At baseline and at treatment week 8