The term, “component-specific clinical trial” (CSCT), first appeared in a paper by Martin Katz, Charles Bowden and Alan Frazer, published in 2010. It was more completely defined three years later, in 2013 by Katz, as a trial in which the method for measuring outcome is profiling the specific drug effects on the principal behavioral, mood and cognitive components of a disorder instead of focusing exclusively on changes in the overall severity of that disorder. The CSCT was employed in a series of clinical trials in the study of drug effects in depression in the early years of the 21st century, the findings of which were reviewed in Katz’s monograph, Depression and Drugs The Neurobehavioral Structure of a Psychological Storm, published in 2013.

Katz MM. Depression and Drugs The Neurobehavioral Structure of Psychological Storm/ Berlin: Springer; 2013, pp. 61-71.

Katz MM, Bowden CL, Frazer A. Rethinking depression and the actions of antidepressants: Uncovering the links between the neural and behavioral elements. J Affective Disorders 2010; 120: 16-23.

Martin M. Katz                                                             

April 3, 2014