NCT04399265

Efficacy Of Oral Trehalose In Spinocerebellar Ataxia 3

A Randomised Controlled Trial on the Clinical Efficacy of Oral Trehalose in Patients With Spinocerebellar Ataxia 3: Clinical & FMRI Correlation

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 20 (estimated)
• Sponsor: National University of Malaysia · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 85 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study evaluates the effectiveness of oral trehalose in alleviating the neuropathological and motor behaviour deficits among patients with SCA3. A total of 40 participants with SCA3 will be recruited, with 20 participants to be administered with trehalose while another 20 participants to be administered with a maltose placebo.

Detailed description

Spinocerebellar ataxia 3 (SCA3) is a rare form of inherited neurodegenerative disease involving progressive degeneration of spinocerebellar tract. SCA3 is characterised by increasingly worsening cerebellar function leading to gait abnormalities and poor coordination, dysarthria, and abnormal eye movements. Non-ataxia features include pyramidal and extrapyramidal manifestations, sensorimotor, neuropsychological and psychiatric symptoms. This is attributed to the role of cerebellum in motor, cognitive and affective processing (i.e. cerebellar cognitive and affective syndrome; CCAS), as well as its extensive connection with cerebral structures. Trehalose is an omnipotent disaccharide molecule found in lower and higher life forms except in vertebrates. It has an amorphous (i.e. non-reducing) property, which is shown in its high hydrophilicity, chemical stability and strong resistance to denaturation / breakdown by heat, acid or enzyme. It is also shown to help refold partially denatured protein, thereby stabilizes protein aggregates, including those of polyglutamine, in vivo as well as in vitro. This has provided an avenue in which trehalose as a therapeutic agent for neurodegenerative disorders with pathological changes of protein aggregates. In this study, a double-blinded randomised controlled trial (RCT) will be employed. A total of 40 patients with SCA3 will be randomly allocated to oral trehalose group and a placebo group (20 participants for each arm). With regards to clinical outcomes, motor and cognitive performances will be assessed to infer the efficacy of trehalose. Likewise, structural, resting-state fMRI (i.e. functional connectivity), and MR spectroscopy (i.e. metabolism), will be used as imaging biomarkers in this study.

Conditions

• Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT	Trehalose	A disaccharide sugar usually used as food preservative, but for this study it is given at a higher dose
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT	Maltose	Maltose power

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-02-24
• Primary completion: 2023-05-30
• Completion: 2023-06-30
• First posted: 2020-05-22
• Last updated: 2022-08-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Malaysia