Neurology and Neurosurgery

Below are current clinical trials.

Filter this list of studies by location, status and more.

1. A Study to Establish a Parkinson’s Disease (PD) Cohort using the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI)

   Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz.

   The Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) is a study to assess progression of clinical features, digital outcomes, and imaging, biologic and genetic markers of Parkinson’s disease (PD) progression in study participants with manifest PD, prodromal PD, and healthy controls. The overall goal of PPMI is to identify markers of disease progression for use in clinical trials of therapies to reduce progression of PD disability.

2. Testing the Addition of an Anti-cancer Drug, Selinexor, to the Usual Chemotherapy Treatment (Temozolomide) for Brain Tumors That Have Returned After Previous Treatment

   Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz.

   The purpose of phase 1 of this trial is to determine the maximum tolerated dose of temozolomide followed by selinexor in recurrent glioblastoma patients as determined by dose-limiting toxicities [DLTs] and the total toxicity profile.

   The purpose of phase 2 of this trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of sequentially administering temozolomide and selinexor in recurrent glioblastoma as determined by progression-free survival [PFS].

3. Magnetic Resonance Elastography of Dementia

   Rochester, Minn.

   The purpose of this study is to develop and test the effectiveness of an investigational imaging technique called magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) to measure the stiffness (mechanical properties) of tissues.

4. A Study of Vaccine Therapy in Treating Patients with Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors that are Recurrent or Cannot Be Removed by Surgery

   Rochester, Minn.

   The purpose of this study is to assess the side effects and best dose of a genetically engineered measles virus for treating patients who have a cancerous peripheral nerve sheath tumor that cannot be removed by surgery (unresectable) or that has come back after a period of improvement (recurrent).

5. Human Blood and Tissues Repository for Neuroscience Research

   Jacksonville, Fla.

   The purpose of this study is to collect adult human blood, cerebrospinal fluid, brain, and spine tissues/fluids at time of surgery in order to conduct future studies of the cellular mechanisms of tissue invasion utilized by brain and spine tumors of the central nervous system (CNS).

6. Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC-001)

   Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz.

   There is evidence that neurodegenerative changes precede clinical symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease by two decades (Villemagne et al, 2013). Early detection is critical for development of interventions to halt, slow, or even reverse these pathological processes. The promise of plasma biomarkers to identify early pathology is growing rapidly (Palmqvist et al, 2020), however it is likely that multiple converging biomarkers will be necessary to identify the earliest pathological changes, as subtle differences from healthy controls may fall within the margin of error for any given single biomarker measure. Here we propose that the evaluation of speech and language for both baseline (cross-sectional) and longitudinal changes (within-participant) may add significant value to early pre-clinical pathological changes in MCI and AD. This is bolstered by emerging evidence of the relationship between language characteristics and amyloid burden (Verfaillie et al, 2019) and the large literature that characterizes language-use differences and deficits across the spectrum of cognitive decline (e.g., Mueller et al, 2018). We propose to add a series of in-clinic language elicitation tasks that allow for automated assessment of relevant speech and language domains and to validate these measures cross-sectionally and longitudinally relevant to neuropsychological, blood, and PET biomarkers.

7. A Study of the Drugs Selumetinib Versus Carboplatin/Vincristine in Patients With Neurofibromatosis and Low-Grade Glioma

   Rochester, Minn.

   The pupose of this study is to evaluate whether or not selumetinib works just as well as the standard treatment with carboplatine/vincristine (CV) for subjects with NF1-associated low grade glioma (LGG), and to see if selumetinib is better than CV in improving vision in subjects with LGG of the optic pathway (vision nerves). Selumetinib is a drug that works by blocking some enzymes that low grade glioma tumor cells need for their growth. This results in killing tumor cells. Drugs used as chemotherapy, such as carboplatin and vincristine, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. It is not yet known whether selumetinib works better in treating patients with NF1-associated low-grade glioma compared to standard therapy with carboplatin and vincristine.

8. A Study to Evaluate Advanced Development of Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Intraoperative Molecular Diagnosis of Brain Cancer

   Jacksonville, Fla.

   The purpose of this study is to explore the translational abilities of desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) as intraoperative diagnostic tool to identify cancerous versus noncancerous tissue and estimate the percentage of tumor infiltration in tissue biopsies, by monitoring depletion of N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and aberrations of the phospholipid signature of neurological tissue; and to identify the presence of IDH mutations by monitoring the 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG) and, therefore, differentiate between IDH-mutant and wild-type gliomas.

9. Peripheral Nerve Stimulation Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation

   Rochester, Minn.

   The purpose of this study is to determine and compare the safety and efficacy of transcutaneous afferent patterned stimulation (TAPS) and respiratory-gated auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) therapies for the reduction of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) burden.

10. A Study to Evaluate Sex and Gender in Multiple System Atrophy

    Rochester, Minn.

    The primary purpose of this study is to understand the influence of sex and gender on pathophysiologic mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) in order to determine sex-specific hormonal factors associated with onset of symptoms in MSA.