Neural Substrates of Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Alcoholism Clinical Trial

Official title: Neural Substrate of Approach-Avoidance Conflict

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Background:

• People who are dependent on alcohol drink even when they know something bad might happen. Researchers want to learn more about why they do this.

Objectives:

• To study brain response when a person plays a game in different threat conditions.

Eligibility:

• Healthy right-handed adult heavy drinkers age 21 60

• Healthy right-handed adult light drinkers age 21 60

Design:

• Participants will be screened with medical history, physical exam, and blood and urine tests. They will have an EKG and psychiatric interview.

• Participants will have one or two clinic visits.

• Participants will be asked about their alcohol drinking.

• They will choose a snack and alcoholic beverage that they must drink in 5 minutes. After their breath alcohol content (BrAC) is zero, they will play a game in the MRI scanner.

• The scanner is a metal cylinder that takes pictures of the brain. Participants lie on a table that slides in and out of the cylinder. They will be in it for about 90 minutes, lying still for up to 20 minutes.

• During the MRI, participants will play a simple computer game to earn food or drink points under different threats of electric shock. Points can be exchanged for food or alcohol after the game. Sometimes, participants will receive a mild electric shock through a metal disk on the wrist. Electric shocks will only happen if the participant tries to earn a reward point.

• After the MRI, participants use their points for another drink and snack. They will stay at the clinic until their BrAC is low, usually within 3 hours. Participants cannot drive themselves home.

• Participants will have a follow-up phone call the next day.

Clinical Trial Description

Objective: Continued drug seeking despite knowledge of adverse consequences is a hallmark of addiction. To model this behavior, we will refine the parameters of a modified Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task that will allow us to investigate neural substrates of approach-avoidance conflict resolution. We will then use this task to investigate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain activation during pursuit of reward in heavy and light drinkers.

Study Population: Healthy non-treatment-seeking heavy drinkers and healthy light drinkers aged 21 to 60.

Design: The study will require 1 to 2 visits. Subjects will play a modified MID task called Reward Incentive Delay with Shock (RIDS) to measure motivation to earn cue reward points in conditions that are signaled to be safe or associated with a threat. After playing the RIDS task subjects will be able to self-administer alcohol and/or food based on the reward points earned during the task.

Outcome measures: The outcome measures are differences in behavioral task performance and in blood oxygenation dependent level (BOLD) signal measured using standard fMRI techniques and analyzed using AFNI software. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alcoholism
• fMRI
• Rewarding Mediating System

• NCT number: NCT02119624
• Study type: Observational
• Source: National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (CC)
• Status: Completed
• Start date: July 23, 2014
• Completion date: September 1, 2020