Conditions: Bipolar Depression
Keywords: Bipolar depression
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 14
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Bipolar disorder is a common and often chronic and debilitating mental illness. The depressive phase of bipolar disorder contributes the largest portion of the disorder, and treatment resistant bipolar depression represents a significant public health problem. Recent research has suggested that bipolar depression is associated with elevated brain glutamate activity. We hypothesize that riluzole, a drug approved for ALS which inhibits glutamate activity, will lead to clinical improvement in patients with bipolar depression.

Detailed description:
We hypothesize that riluzole will lead to significant reduction in depressive symptoms as measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D). Additionally, improvement in depressive symptoms will be associated with reduced glutamate levels in the anterior cingulate cortex, but not parieto-occipital cortex, both at day two and day 42.

Arms:
arm 1: Riluzole 50 mg twice daily for 2 weeks, increased to riluzole 50 mg in the morning and 100 mg in the evening for 1 week if tolerated, with a further increase to riluzole 100 mg twice daily if tolerated for 3 weeks.

Interventions: intervention 1: Riluzole
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 50 mg twice daily for 2 weeks 50 mg in the morning and 100 mg in the evening for 1 week 100 mg twice daily for 3 weeks

Protocol document: